Imaginaries Out of Place: Cinema, Transnationalism and Turkey 1443841331, 9781443841337

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Imaginaries Out of Place

Imaginaries Out of Place: Cinema, Transnationalism and Turkey

Edited by

Gökçen Karanfil and Serkan ùavk

Imaginaries Out of Place: Cinema, Transnationalism and Turkey, Edited by Gökçen Karanfil and Serkan ùavk This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Gökçen Karanfil and Serkan ùavk and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4133-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4133-7

In memory of Serhan Mersin

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword and Acknowledgements ............................................................. ix An Introduction from the Editors ............................................................... 1 Gökçen Karanfil and Serkan ùavk A Transformational Experience within the Contexts of “National” and “Transnational”: The Case of Turkish Cinema ..................................... 6 Nejat Ulusay Transforming Hospitality: Forming New Transcultural Fields in Turkish Cinema ..................................................................................... 23 Serhan Mersin and Pnar Yldz Habitats of Meaning: Turkish-German Cinema and Generational Differences ................................................................................................ 37 Ayça Tunç Cox From Two Worlds to a Third Space: Stereotypy and Hybridity in Turkish-German Cinema ....................................................................... 56 Rob Burns The Limitation of Urban Space in Thomas Arslan’s Berlin Trilogy ......... 89 Jessica Gallagher The Black Humor World of Migrants Caught between Two Cultures: Space, Identity and Belonging in Tunç Okan’s Cinema .......................... 109 Senem Duruel Erklç and Hakan Erklç At Home in the New Germany?: Local Stories and Global Concerns in Yüksel Yavuz’s Aprilkinder and Kleine Freiheit ................................ 132 Christina Kraenzle Weddings Scenes as Metaphors for Homeland ....................................... 154 Özgür Yaren

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Centre and Periphery: Film Practices among the Turkish Diaspora in Antwerp............................................................................................... 170 Kevin Smets, Philippe Meers, Roel Vande Winkel and Sofie Van Bauwel From Turkish Greengrocer to Drag Queen: Reassessing Patriarchy in Recent Turkish-German Coming-of-age Films ................................... 188 Daniela Berghahn Women in Turkish-German Cinema: Tracing the Direction of Change Through Woman’s Image........................................................................ 207 Di÷dem Sezen Contributors ............................................................................................ 220

FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All articles in this edited volume revolve around two central concerns, mobility and cinema, and their relationship to Turkey marks their point of convergence. This is a book about the ways in which the flow of people, ideas, and cultures has resulted in a particular form of Turkey-related cinema that disrupts and subverts the conventional ways of thinking about ‘Turkish cinema’. Indeed, the realization that there is this particular form of cinema -which puts one in an awkward position in one’s attempt to understand (and teach) national cinema (for that matter, anything about the national)- has been our initial point of departure for this book. One of us has been teaching, for the past few years, courses on Turkish cinema and the other, courses on theories of nationalism and the media. This book was our attempt to rethink and contemplate the ways in which new forms of mobilities and hybridities have made it extremely difficult, and at times impossible, to conceptualize anything as ‘national’. Therefore, this book consists of articles that shed light on what we have come to refer to as ‘Turkey related cinema’, each article taking its own unique perspective on the subject. This edited volume can be seen as the descendent of a compact conference on cinema held at the Izmir University of Economics in April 2011. Titled “Topographies of ‘Turkish Cinema’: Hybrids, Hyphens and Borders”, the conference was aimed at bringing together scholars from around the world whose research interests coincided with issues of cinema related in one way or another to Turkey. In this respect, we would like to take this opportunity to thank both the Izmir University of Economics and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation in Istanbul for making this conference possible through their financial contributions. While the conference was a starting point for the emergence of this book, it is our contention that to see this volume as simply a book of proceedings would do injustice to the effort put into the articles by their authors. We believe that this book deserves to be deemed a publication in its own right for a number of reasons. For one, the articles in the book are not limited to conference presentations; the book consists of a number of invited articles as well. Secondly, not all but only selected presentations from the conference have been included here, and only after having been rewritten by the contributing authors. Finally, the book brings together articles that

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Foreword and Acknowledgements

deal with what again, we should like to refer to as Turkey-related cinema, from a wide variety of perspectives. We received valuable contributions from many colleagues in the process of editing this book, though there are some that we should mention here. First and foremost, we are grateful to the authors who have contributed to this book project with their chapters. Needless to say, this book would not have been possible had it not been for them. We should also like to take this opportunity to thank Simone Mumford for providing us professional help with the English editing of the articles included in this book. We are indebted to Professor Sevda Alankuú for all her support and for being the most understanding dean throughout our endeavors to put this volume together. We would like to thank Professor Robert Cardullo for the invaluable scholarly advice he generously shared with us, and for his enlightening tips about the world of publishing. We thank Professor Nezih Erdo÷an for sharing his experience and giving feedback regarding this book in our exchanges over cups of coffee. Finally, we thank Cambridge Scholars Publishing for taking on the publication of this book. During the period in which this book was being prepared for publication, we were greatly saddened by the news of our colleague Serhan Mersin’s passing away. Serhan Mersin and Pnar Yldz had written an article for this volume titled “Transforming Hospitality: Forming New Transcultural Fields in Turkish Cinema”. Unfortunately, Serhan could not see the publication of this book. We publish this book in memory of Serhan, a dear friend and a young colleague who will be sadly missed. Gökçen Karanfil Serkan ùavk August 2012 / øzmir

AN INTRODUCTION FROM THE EDITORS GÖKÇEN KARANFIL AND SERKAN ùAVK

Introduction chapters for compiled volumes are usually expected to draw a framework and exhibit the common encompassing theoretical background for the chapters in the book. Since this volume does not aim at a particular approach but rather tries to scrutinize the multi-faceted position of its subject matter, we choose to skip this convention of drawing a theoretical framework in our introduction. What we aim to accomplish with this short introduction instead is to highlight some milestones and benchmarks from the story of this book’s evolution, and share the underlying motives behind its publication. We hope that this in turn, will prove fruitful for offering the reader an insight as to a variety of contexts within which this collection of essays may be read, without being too imposing on the reader’s imagination. The story of this book starts in our classrooms. One of us teaching courses on theories and sociology of communication, the other on Turkish cinema and film production for the past few years, in our collegial chats we have come to realize that the difficulty of contextualizing the cases of migrant, diasporic and transnational cultures and cinemas in our lectures was becoming a recurring theme in our discussions. It soon became clear to us that while there were a variety of factors that rendered these themes hard to grasp for our students, the primary factor was the students’ habit of trying to define or understand most everything within the context of nationally-oriented dichotomies – a pattern of thinking which is still prevalent in public culture as well. This realization was what led us to organize a conference titled Topographies of ‘Turkish cinema’: Hybrids, hyphens and borders, held on April 21 and 22, 2011 at øzmir University of Economics. This book is a descendant of this conference. This compilation was put together with an aim to point at the possibility of multiple readings. This is why we have avoided from the start, the idea of grouping or …ƒ–‡‰‘”‹œ‹‰ the chapters under sections and subsections. We were concerned that such a grouping would mean underlining a “more appropriate” or a “proper” way of reading the

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chapters in this book and forming a linear link between them. Contrarily, we should like to think that these chapters respond to and connect with each other at different levels on a multi-faceted manner. A careful reader will quickly realize that the book includes chapters from a variety of different ideological, methodological and academic perspectives. The book does not adhere strictly to, say, a modernist approach - or any other specific paradigm at that. As the editors, we believe that this diversity enriches the compilation. For more or less similar reasons we have preferred to employ a modest table of contents in terms of organizing the chapters. We believed that this would enable the reader to better appreciate the interrelated nature between them. As mentioned above, the primary aim of this book is to remind the reader the need for new/alternative ways of reading the “national”, with a particular emphasis on Turkish cinema. We are convinced that without a contestation towards the concept of national cinema, any discussion generated on Turkey-related migrant, diasporic and transnational cinema will remain incomplete. When we look at the literature on European cinema, we can see that this issue of contesting the “national” has been an important component of the academic discussions for some time now. However, a limited number of publications and research put aside, this issue still remains neglected to an important extent within the literature on Turkish cinema. Nejat Ulusay’s chapter eloquently fills this void by going beyond the modest limits of a book chapter. In his chapter A Transformational Experience within the Contexts of “National” and “Transnational”, he gives a panorama of the shift that Turkish cinema has experienced during the last 20 years. To this aim, he underlines the role of four different facts: i-) Rise of local box-office films, ii-) emergence of a “New Turkish cinema” integrated to the global/transnational art-house cinema, iii-) films by hybrid identities and their relation to Turkish cinema and iv-) minority cinemas in Turkey. The contribution of the post-structural literature is as crucial as the critique of the idea of national cinemas to the study of migrant, diasporic and transnational identities and their cultural products. Most of the chapters in this volume utilize the approaches and vocabularies developed by post-structuralist philosophers. Deploying Derrida’s concepts of conditional and unconditional hospitality, in their chapter Serhan Mersin and Pnar Yldz question the capacity of Turkish cinema to form transcultural fields for instance. On a similar line, Di÷dem Sezen’s work is strongly connected to most of the other chapters in the volume with its vocabulary, approach and subject. Relying on Deleuze and Guattari, she

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compares the ways women are represented in the films of first and second generation migrant filmmakers. Starting with the labor migration in 1960s there has been a major influx of migration from Turkey to Germany. Today, with the numbers reaching nearly five million, Germany accommodates the largest Turkey-related population by far in comparison to any other country. With such high numbers of migrants, Germany has become a country where issues of migration have been most hotly debated within the context of discussions on “New Europe”. Turkey, being at the sending end of this migratory flow, has also always considered Germany as the primary host-land of Turkish expatriates. Be it in public discourse or the mainstream media, Germany has always been recognized as a central figure in Turkey anytime there has been an agenda related with issues of migration. As an extension of this discourse, Turkey-related cinema(s) of diasporic subjects and their relation to cinema in Turkey, weather in the academia or in popular culture, have almost always been debated with references to Turkish-German filmmakers, and their films. Perhaps in line with this tendency in the literature, there are chapters in this collection as well that focus on what we can refer to as Turkish-German cinema. Deploying the concept of “habitat” as her core terminology, Ayça Tunç Cox, in her chapter, compares the construction of space in the films of second and third generation Turkish-German filmmakers for instance. Rob Burns in his chapter concentrates on the films of Turkish-German filmmakers who have started their feature filmmaking career in 1990s. By doing so he demonstrates how the films of these young directors can be differentiated from the “cinema of the affected” approach which has been used to describe the previous generation. In addition to this primary contribution in this piece, as a side note, the reader is also offered a historical panorama of Turkish-German cinema thanks to the detailed and retrospective structure of Burns’ article. While it may be argued that the auteur theory has lost its initial popularity in film criticism, as a methodology analyzing particular filmmakers and their cinemas is still widely continued. When it is the cinema of a migratory subject that is in question, the emphasis on the filmmaker becomes more prominent. In this respect, Jessica Gallagher elaborates on Thomas Arslan films. In her article, Gallagher points out the similarities between first and second generation migratory subjects with reference to spatial limitations by using the Deleuzian notions of space. Tunç Okan can be regarded as an early example of Turkey-related filmmaker and his cinema as migrant/diasporic/transnational filmmaking. Tunç Okan shot his films between 1970s and early 1990s, which means

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that his career as a filmmaker took off long before the new generations from gastarbeiter families had started becoming visible with their feature films in 1990s. Even though in many cases he is regarded simply as a Turkish filmmaker living abroad, his life story and films go beyond this limiting description. In this sense Tunç Okan has always been an important cinematic figure for “Turkish cinema”. Drawing mainly on Derridean vocabulary, Senem Duruel Erklç and Hakan Erklç focus in their chapter, on the relation between culture, space and belonging by analyzing the characters in Tunç Okan films. Another director oriented chapter in the book is At Home in the New Germany?: Local Stories and Global Concerns in Yüksel Yavuz’s Aprilkinder and Kleine Freiheit. In this chapter Christina Kraenzle interprets these two films as a third alternative besides “cinema and duty” and “pleasures of hybridity”. When too much emphasis is put on a certain set of questions and arguments, there is always the chance that other questions or concepts might be forgotten or neglected – no matter how closely they may be related with the core of the subject. It is our contention that “heimat” is one such concept. Despite the fact that migration, diaspora and transnationality are shaped in relation to notions, assumptions and imaginations of homelands, it is not very uncommon for the concept of homeland to be left out of the equation. Özgür Yaren’s chapter becomes an important contribution to this volume within this context. Reflecting on a wide range of films, in his chapter Özgür Yaren exhibits the role of wedding scenes as metaphors of homeland. The co-authored chapter by Kevin Smets, Philippe Meers, Roel Vande Winkel and Sofie Van Bauwel focuses on the film going practices of the Turkish diaspora in Antwerp. Based on the results of a wider research carried out in the city of Antwerp, the authors of the article utilize the conceptualization of bridging and bonding. While the majority of the literature on Turkey-related cinema focuses on films and filmmakers, this chapter depicts a portrait of audience practices. The audience/reception focus of this research coupled with its methodological preference in using quantitative and qualitative methods such as audience survey, in-depth interview, focus group and participant observation together, make it a rare work not only in this volume but also in the whole literature on Turkeyrelated cinema. We have suggested previously that the literature on Turkey-related migrant and transnational cinema has to a great extent been dominated by studies on Turkish-German cinema. While we do think that this is a valid statement, we also believe that it is an incomplete one. This domination in

An Introduction from the Editors

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the literature is in fact two-fold. In addition to the abundance of studies on Turkish-German cinema there is also a particular focus on filmmakers, such as Fatih Akn, Kutlu÷ Ataman and Ferzan Özpetek. Due to their fame, popularity and hotly debated auras, these directors and their films stand out in the literature and are regarded as perfect representatives of Turkey-related migrant cinema. While we acknowledge the prominence of these cinematic figures and the contributions studies on their cinema make to this field of research, we also believe that research on cinematic experiences and products of less prominent figures will also be telling for a better understanding of Turkey-related migrant cinema. Daniela Berghahn’s contribution to this book becomes very important within this context. By focusing on the films of Sülbiye Günar, Ayúe Polat and Züli Aladag, Daniela Berghahn reminds us in her chapter, the importance of other migrant and hybrid identities. Based on Bakhtinian notions of “dialogism” and “dialogic imagination”, Berghahn criticizes the oppressive Turkish patriarch stereotype in these films. As a sum up, compiling articles from a wide range of perspectives, each attempting to tackle diverse issues regarding the concepts of Turkish cinema and what we choose to refer to as Turkey-related cinema, this volume aims at opening pathways to new discussions in this area of research. We believe that its originality and contribution prevails in the new sets of questions introduced in its chapters. We hope that Imaginaries Out of Place will enrich existing debates around the issues of cinema and transnationalism with a particular focus on Turkey.

A TRANSFORMATIONAL EXPERIENCE WITHIN THE CONTEXTS OF “NATIONAL” AND “TRANSNATIONAL”: THE CASE OF TURKISH CINEMA NEJAT ULUSAY

The concept of national cinema has been on the agenda of film studies for some twenty years. Since cinema is considered a powerful medium in terms of re-presenting reality, the study of filmic representation, which itself is deeply a social and a cultural phenomenon, becomes an immediate task in the age of global media and multiple identities, both of which have emerged as challenging concepts in relation to the “national”. Questions of self-definition and the range of cultural representations of a particular national cinema, therefore, appear as two major aspects in any discussion dealing with this issue. While the first of these is concerned with signifying practices or modes of representation, covering such elements as thematic concerns, narrative construction and stylistic approaches, the latter includes the ways in which a national cinema represents those in the margins of a given nation. The transformation that Turkish cinema has experienced in terms of production practices, modes of representation, and stylistic approaches within the last two decades would be an interesting case in point. In my view, this process has four major aspects: First is the box-office success of some domestic films, which has brought a new ‘golden age’ to Turkish cinema. Second is the institutionalization of “art film”, which has become a vehicle for providing international acclaim for the new Turkish cinema. Third, hybrid representations featured in the films of Turkish-German directors, as well as in Ferzan Özpetek’s “Italian” films appear as challenges to the fixed definitions of not only German and Italian national cinemas, respectively, but also to Turkish cinema. Finally, the growing visibility of the Kurdish identity in the mode of realistic depictions in films, as well as the works of Turkish-Cypriot director Derviú Zaim,

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would arguably represent the emergence of new ethnic, regional or “other” cinemas. In this article, I focus on these four aspects of this transformation in Turkish cinema by touching on such issues as the transnational dimensions of Turkish popular and art cinemas, the current situation of TurkishGerman cinema, and the rise of a new cinema within the margins of Turkish cinema.

Domestic popular cinema: a new ‘golden age’ Turkish cinema enjoyed a heyday of popular genres, the huge popularity of star names and box-office success in its own market throughout the 1960s and the early-1970s. This was followed by a long standing crisis, during which very few films were produced and attendance and the numbers of movie theaters rapidly decreased. The crises deepened as major Hollywood companies entered into the Turkish market to distribute their brand new blockbusters in the second half of the 1980s. The market share of domestic cinema dropped to around 1–2% in the early-1990s. This crisis, which continued almost two decades, finally came to an end in the mid-1990s, when a new wave of Turkish films such as østanbul Kanatlarmn Altnda (Istanbul, Under My Wings, Mustafa Altoklar, 1995) and Eúkya (The Bandit, Yavuz Turgul 1996) performed well at the box-office. Since then, the film industry has shown a gradual improvement. Recently, budgets for production have risen to an average of $15–20 million (Özkan, 2010: 60), which means that the audience is finally able to access domestic films of good technical quality. It should be mentioned that Turkish cinema’s recent success owes much to the television and advertising industries, both of which have transnational connections. Additionally, Turkish films have benefited from a growing overseas market, particulary European countries, where there are close to 4.2 million ethnic Turks. Indeed, just as the Indian and Chinese diasporas that have made Bollywood products and martial arts films exportable not only to neighboring Asian and African countries, but also to the West, the Turkish diaspora’s demand for popular Turkish films, which would otherwise be consumed only in their own market, has provided a transnational market for domestic popular cinema. It is worth remembering that in the 1960s and the early 1970s, during the first “golden age” of Turkish cinema (also called the “Yeúilçam period”), it was mainly the population of Anatolian cities and domestic migrants from rural to urban centers who comprised the mass audience of domestic films.

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The year 2010 is the brightest in the recent history of Turkish cinema. According to the European Audovisual Observatory report, “[L]ooking outside of the EU, Turkey remained the leading European country in terms of national market share, with Turkish films taking 53% of total admissions in 2010.” (http://www.obs.coe.int). While the box-office reached its peak, the number of domestic films distributed was 66 (the number of foreign films distributed was 177). The box-office income in 2010 was 188 million TL (Radikal, 30.12.2010), the best result within the last 20 years. It is interesting to note that the box-office list of top ten films is dominated by domestic productions. While the first three hit films are Turkish, only two Hollywood productions made it to the list: Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (David Slade, 2010) each which had audiences of approximately equal size, around one and a half million. The most popular film of the year, New York’ta Beú Minare (Five Minarets in New York, Mahsun Krmzgül, 2010), on the other hand, attracted approximately 3.5 million (Radikal, 30.12.2010). It would also be useful to make a brief analysis on the composition of the films in the list. Let us start with two Hollywood blockbusters. Inception and The Twilight: Eclipse are examples of fantastic cinema, one of the major popular genres that has had a remarkable impact on the world. While Inception can be classified under the heading of some sub-genres of fantastic cinema such as “science fiction”, “subconscious” or “puzzle films”, Eclipse can be categorized as horror film. Both films mainly appeal to a young audience as the majority of filmgoers all over the world. With regards to domestic cinema, we can define the box-office hits as follows: Çok Film Hareketler Bunlar (Comedy Ktichen: Holiday Recipes, Ozan Açktan, 2009) is the first Turkish comedy in the style of British-patented ‘Monty Python’; Yahúi Bat (The Ottoman Cowboys, Ömer Faruk Sorak, 2009) is a western parody based on a “true story” as argued by the film’s co-producer, screenwriter and star, Cem Ylmaz; Recep Ivedik 3 (ùahan Gökbakan, 2010) is a comedy that evokes all the most vulgar and trash films in the history of world cinema; Eyvah! Eyvah! (Oh My God! Oh My God!, Hakan Algül, 2009) another, but a better quality local comedy with good performances; Av Mevsimi (Hunting Season, Yavuz Turgul, 2010) is an all male star Turkish policier, featuring ùener ùen and Cem Ylmaz. The last two films on the list, Veda (Farewell, Zülfü Livaneli, 2009) and Dersimiz Atatürk (Today’s Lesson is on Atatürk, Hamdi Alkan, 2010) are historical productions focusing on the life of Atatürk. It can be argued, then, that the list partly reflects the ideologic trends in contemporary Turkey.

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In terms of recent box-office figures I would like to draw attention to Five Minarets in New York and Kurtlar Vadisi: Filistin (The Valley of the Wolves: Palestine, Zübeyr ùaúmaz, 2010), the last film of the series Kurtlar Vadisi (Valley of the Wolves), which was released in the beginning of 2011 and soon became a box-office hit. Both of these films are blockbusters that cross national boundaries and attempt to deal with global conflicts. Shot on location in New York, østanbul and Bitlis, Five Minarets in New York casts Hollywood actors and actresses, if not stars, Danny Glover and Gina Gershon. Although its producers are Turkish, Five Minarets in New York can be considered as a co-production between Turkey and the USA (in this case, Hollywood), for not only some leading players, but also many of the artistic and technical crews, in such deparments as cinematography, art direction, make up, special effects, visual effects and also stunts are American. As a big budget production shot for the wide screen, the film is generous enough in relation to supporting cast, action scenes, impressive location shots of New York and Istanbul. Five Minarets in New York tells the story of a leader of an Islamic organization and two Turkish anti-terrorist agents who are sent to New York City on a mission to find and bring him back to Turkey. On its website, the film’s theme is mentioned as follows: “The story (…) challenges the recent-era Turkey and underlines America’s paranoia with the Islamic world after 9/11.” (http://www.newyorktabesminare.com). Five Minarets in New York repeats classical Hollywood formulas blended with features of Eastern melodrama: leading male figures within a story reminiscent of “buddy films”; chase scenes; fast cuts; a symphonic soundtrack which never ceases; emphasis on the importance of family; the influence of religious values upon daily life; revenge that appears within the context of feudal customs such as blood-feuds; and furthermore, the celebration of an international and interreligious marriage that brings a cosmopolitan appeal to the narrative. Within this context, a comment by the critic of a mainstream Turkish newspaper, Ömür Gedik of Hürriyet, is revealing: “I felt as if I was watching a Hollywood detective movie. Filming, shots, acting are all as competent as those made in Hollywood. I recommend that you should not hold back your tears in the end…” (http://www.newyorktabesminare.com). The Valley of the Wolves: Palestine, on the other hand, depicts the adventurous story of a James Bond-like Turkish hero, Polat Alemdar, and his team who go to Palestine to avenge the people killed on the Mavi Marmara (Blue Marmara) ship carrying humanitary aid to Gaza in the early summer of 2010. According to its web site, the film aims to draw “the attention of the whole world (…) to Palestine, where people are facing one of the biggest humanitarian

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crises” (http://www.kurtlarvadisifilistin.com). After his previous boxoffice success, Güneúi Gördüm (I’ve Seen the Sun, 2009), which deals with the Kurdish question, Krmzgül widens his horizon and attempts, with Five Minarets in New York, to act as a mediator for a reconciliation between the West and Islam. The Valley of the Wolves: Palestine, on the other hand, intends to exploit the case of Mavi Marmara in order to generate a quick profit. While the former can be defined as pathetic, the latter is aggressive. As the above analysis makes it clear, Turkish popular cinema is no longer simply domestic; it seeks to cross national boundaries in every sense.

The rise of “art film” and the inernationalisation of Turkish cinema Another major aspect of the transformation that Turkish cinema has experienced is the emerging trend of art film production, which has introduced a “new Turkish cinema” integrated with the “global/transnational art cinema”. Indeed, after the international rise of national cinemas such as the Korean, Taiwaniese, Iranian and Romanian cinemas in the recent past, Turkish cinema has become a center of interest in film festivals as the showcase of “art cinema”. As Agnès Poirier of The Guardian newspaper wrote in 2008, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Fatih Akn’s films “got every film critic and cinephile talking about østanbul and Turkish cinema, and looking out for the next film director from that part of the world.” (2008) “Art cinema”, arguably a confusing concept in film studies, “describes feature-lenght narrative films at the margins of mainstream cinema, located somewhere between fully experimental films and overtly commercial products. (Galt and Schoonover, 2010: 6). According to Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover, because of the Eurocentric structure of the dominant history of art cinema, “the concept has been commonly linked with a narrow and reactionary version of the international, rather than with more expansive, radical, or controversial frames such as world cinema, postcoloniality, or globalization.” (9). Galt and Schoonover prefer to use the term of “global art cinema” in their edited book of the same title. The “art film” is arguably a new concept in Turkish cinema, which lacks a tradition of “art cinema”, with the exception of “socially realistic” films of the 1960s and early 1970s focusing on the social problems of cities and villages, including issues of class, domestic migration, unemployment, urbanization and worker’s rights. It can be argued that film directors in the “national cinema” movement attempted to develop

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their own styles in the 1960s. However, these directors, influenced both by the approaches of the “third cinema” movement, and by European art cinema were eventually forced by film industry circumstances to follow the mainstream. Many factors have contributed recently to the establishment of an “art cinema” in a modernistic sense in Turkey; government funds, Turkey’s involvement with the European co-production fund, Eurimages, international festivals, thematic television channels, the growing markets of video cassette and now CD technologies, the rise of film and television studies as a field at universities, a younger generation of filmmakers, many of whom are cinephiles, and the rise of digital media technologies which, as the Dogme directors rightly argued in 1995, have democratised film making. One of the most important agents in this process, however, is Eurimages, which provides financial support for the production, distribution and exhibition of films. For a period of 59 years, between 1931 and 1990, Turkey was involved in only 40 co-productions, with Greece, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon and Italy. The majority of these were melodramas and adaptations from romance stories of the folk literature, as well as some action films and “spaghetti westerns”. In contrast, since Turkey joined Eurimages in 1990, the fund has provided financial support for over 60 feature films within 20 years. Eurimages has a certain mission described by Mike Wayne, “Eurimages has a cultural remit, seeking festival awards, critical praise and perceived contributions to cultural life from the films it funds.” (2002: 13). The internationally acclaimed directors of the so-called “Turkish new wave” include Nuri Bilge Ceylan [Uzak (Distant, 2002), øklimler (Climates, 2006), Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys, 2008)], Semih Kaplano÷lu [Yumurta (Egg, 2007), Süt (Milk, 2008), Bal (Honey, 2010)] and Reha Erdem [Beú Vakit (Times and Winds, 2006), Hayat Var (My Only Sunshine, 2008)], Kozmos (Cosmos, 2009). These award-winning films at Cannes and Berlin film festivals are Eurimages funded international co-productions by directors known for their trilogies and inspired by the masters of minimalist art cinema, namely Robert Bresson and Andrey Tarkovsky. With regards to the internationalisation of Turkish cinema by means of the rise of art filmmaking, I would once more refer to Galt and Schoonover, who argue Iranian or Romanian cinemas emerge from specific material historical circumstances and cannot be reduced to a critical or distributive cycle. The new Romanian cinema, for example, emerges at the same moment that Romania joins the European Union: The cinematic and geopolitical institutions interconnect in a temporally and materially legible manner (2010: 13).

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It is worth remembering that in the post–1980 era a discussion of domestic film within the terms of “art cinema” in Turkey has become widespread. The post-1980s has seen a significant change in the state’s approach towards Turkish cinema. Since then, censorship has declined, and the Ministry of Culture started funding domestic films, and Turkey became a member of Eurimages. Those have been the consequences of the late-1980s changing macro-political concerns during the late 1980, one of which has been Turkey’s application for membership in the European Union.

Turkish-German and Turkish-Italian cinemas With regards to Turkey-related cinema, the most remarkable development is the emergence of a group of “immigrant filmmakers” in the late 1990s in Germany, where three million Turkish immigrants live. As a new cinematic movement, the so-called Turkish-German cinema has brought dynamism not only to the German cinema, but arguably to Turkish cinema in general. The films of Turkish-German directors are multilingual narratives, featuring German and Turkish, and sometimes English. These films reject negative stereotypes about immigrants, and they are concerned with identity and transgression of identity. According to Ursula Vossen, immigrant directors’ films cannot be considered within the context of an ethnic cinema, but rather a multicultural one; they focus on the tension between traditional and modern, old and new, assimilation and foreignness, Turkish culture and German life (1999). Fatih Akn is undoubtedly the leading figure of this cinema. Akn’s films are set in Germany and Turkey (mainly in Hamburg and østanbul), and they are in dialogue with “home” and the “host society”. As Daniela Berghahn puts it, Fatih Akn’s films feature “the blend of western and Turkish music, ethnic identity themes and references to an eclectic mix of cultural and cinematic traditions sampled from Hollywood, Europe and the ‘Orient’” (2006: 144). It is worth noting that when his Gegen die Wand (Duvara Karú/Head-On, 2004) won the ‘best film’ award in Berlin in 2004, both the German and Turkish media claimed ownership of the film, applauding it as a representative of the success of their respective cinemas. In the final analysis, however, I do not think that Duvara Karú is a German or a Turkish film, but a ‘Fatih Akn film’, that represents everything representing him and his social and cultural milieus. What could be said about the position of Fatih Akn, as well as of other GermanTurkish directors is that “a nation, whether a filmmaker’s own or not, came to be no longer necessarily the base from which films are made and

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distributed, and a national audience no longer necessarily the primary destinatario.” (Newman, 1993: 70) I would argue that such concepts as “diasporic cinema”, “accented cinema”, “immigrants’ cinema”, “German-Turkish cinema” or “the cinema of second generation”, all of which have been so far used to define the “immigrants’ cinema” are insufficient to explain the phenomennon properly. While there are few similarities between the styles of TurkishGerman male filmmakers, differences are more obvious between the films of male and female Turkish-German directors. The films of female directors, almost all of which narrate the experience of immigration through mother-daughter relationships, however, have common features in terms of their thematic concerns and minimalist styles. Multiculturalism has been a natural feature of both male and female directors’ films. Yet in these films, multiculturalism as has not been idealised and represented as a process without conflicts, and these filmmakers have never avoided expression of culturally different aspects of their identites. On the other hand, they refuse to become integrated with any specific culture. At this point, it is worth remembering that Fatih Akn and Mehmet Kurtuluú once said: “We are new Germans… Now, Gastarbeiter (“guest workers”) is a concept of the past” (quoted in Yalçn-Heckmann, 2003: 308). Even a comment like this should not be considered as an appreciation of multiculturalism or the expression of a desire for integration. In fact, being ‘new Germans’ means being hybrid. As Göktürk and others rightly put it, “[S]econd generation immigrants like [Fatih] Akn have established affiliations across ethnicities that have transformed the image of what and who is German.” (2007: 15). Generally speaking, Turkish-German cinema and the “new queer cinema”, which emerged in the early 1990s in North America have some common characteristics. While, the leading figures of the new queer cinema struggled to become visible and contributed to activist movements against medical disasters such as AIDS and social prejudices such as homophobia, parents of Turkish-German filmmakers, and directors themselves had to face problems such as racism and xenophobia. And yet these immigrants have also been discriminated against as “Almanclar” by their home culture. Both queer filmmakers and immigrant directors have served as voices of marginalized groups. Like the new queer cinema, Turkish-German cinema is a male dominated movement. B. Ruby Rich, who announced the emergence of the new queer cinema in 1992, wrote

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Nejat Ulusay the new queer films and videos aren’t all the same, and don’t share a single aesthetic vocabulary or strategy or concern. Yet they are nonetheless united by a common style. Call it ‘Homo Pomo’: there are traces in all of them of appropriation and pastiche, irony, as well as a reworking of history with social constructionism very much in mind. Definitively breaking with older humanist approaches and the films and tapes that accompanied identity politics, these works [queer films] are irreverent, energetic, alternately minimalist and excessive. Above all, they’re full of pleasure (1995: 165–166).

I would readily borrow Rich’s above definition of the new queer cinema and use it for the Turkish-German cinema simply by replacing the terms, “queer films” and “immigrants’ films”. With regards to the final comment in Rich’s definition quoted above, I would like to repeat the prominence of Fatih Akn. His films are not minimalist, but energetic, excessive and full of pleasure, as, in Raymond Williams’ words, a “structure of feeling”, of which Turkish cinema considerably lacks. For example, Soul Kitchen (2009), his very personal latest film, features almost everything related to pleasure: food, sex, friendship, music, and dance. Turkish-German directors began their professional careers at the end of the 1990s. After more than a decade, it seems that the movement has come to a standstill. It can be argued that, apart from Fatih Akn and Thomas Arslan, the majority of the Turkish-German directors have not made feature films for a considerable length of time. While some have shot documentaries, most of them have been working fort the German television industry, directing television films and episodes for series, having given up on crucial issues such as multiculturalism and identity themes. For example, while Thomas Arslan narrates the regret of a thirtysomething German woman in Ferien (Vacation, 2007), and directs a crime film with German characters, Im Schatten (In the Shadows, 2010), Buket Alakuú tells the story of an unsuccessful German musician in Finnischer Tango (Finnish Tango, 2008). Towards the end of 2010, the Prime Minister of Germany, Angela Merkel claimed that in Germany multiculturalism had “utterly failed”. Merkel was followed by France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, who himself is the son of a Hungarian immigrant, and British Prime Minister David Cameron also declared the policy of multiculturalism to be a failure. In order to understand whether the cinema reflects this view, the most appropriate course would be to consider a wonderful film, Jerichow (2008), by a leading German director, Christian Petzold. Directed with mastery by Petzold, who is the husband of Turkish-German documentary filmmaker Aysun Bademsoy, Jerichow features a sucessful small

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businessman, a middle-aged Turkish man, Ali. This character is wonderfully portrayed by Hilmi Sözer, one of the leading actors of Turkish-German cinema, who has appeared in films like Auslandstournee (Tour Abroad, Ayúe Polat) and Kanak Attack (Lars Becker) both made in 2000. Ali runs a chain of snack bars, and offers Thomas, a discharged Afghanistan veteran, a job as his chauffeur and personal assistant. However, Thomas and Ali’s neglected younger wife, Laura, soon become lovers. Loosely adapted from James M. Cain’s famous novel The Postman Always Rings Twice published in 1934, the film is shot in location in nourtheastern Germany, a region from where the film takes its title, and where the recent economic crisis has made itself forcefully felt. Jerichow reverses the positions of the host and the immigrant, and represents its German characters as losers: a young man, dishonored by the military and suffering from unemployment; and a charming woman with a secret in her past. This cold, bleak, and heavy hearted film nicely observes the lack of human contact between the two communities -Turkish and German-, although its central character, Ali, exhibits sincere efforts to generate a kind of proximity between the three characters throughout the narrative. As Jerichow suggests, multiculturalism is in crisis. Although his status as a filmmaker in Italy arguably is different than those of the German-Turkish directors, in his films, Ferzan Özpetek generates a kind of hybridity that springs from his multicultural identity formation which has been influenced by Turkish and Italian cultures, as well as by the contemporary gay sub-cultures. Mainly set in Italian cities, the films feature middle and upper middle class Italians, and in some cases Turkish immigrants, often portrayed by the director’s favourite actress Serra Ylmaz. The soundtracks of his films consist of popular Italian and Turkish songs, and, as can be clearly observed in his last film, Mine Vaganti (Loose Cannons, 2010), Özpetek uses narrative elements of popular Italian and Turkish films made in the earlier periods of these respective cinemas. He reached international fame through the gay thematics of the majority of his films; and in terms of the representation of immigrant and sexual identities, he has come to prominence in contemporary Italian cinema. This appears as an important issue in that, as Derek Duncan points out, “[U]nlike many other western countries in recent years, Italy has not produced much gay-centred cinema.” (2005: 102) I would also like to point out the difficulty of categorizing Özpetek’s films, the ingrediants of which are a combination of “woman’s film”, queer cinema, European art cinema and postmodern melodrama, a mixed formula which sometime confuses the audience.

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Minority cinemas Turkish-German directors and Ferzan Özpetek cannot be considered makers of a minority or ethnic cinema, but as filmmakers who make their films within the realms of a global cinema, including German, Italian, and Turkish cinemas. With regards to ethnicity, it can be said that due to the recent recognition of the Kurdish identity by the political establishment, a kind of minority cinema dealing with this very issue, through more realistic approaches, has emerged in Turkey. In the “village films” made before the 1980s, however, the Kurds were usually represented as poor peasants, clashing with landlords or resorting to smuggling across the southeast borders of Anatolia in order to survive. These films attributed no ethnic identity to their protagonists, who simply spoke Turkish with a particular accent. The 1970s “young cinema” began to deal more seriously with the problems of region. Among the films produced by the movement, Sürü (The Herd, Zeki Ökten, 1978) stands out particularly with the way it represents the poverty and despair that the ordinary people of southeast Anatolia face. Written by Ylmaz Güney, who is considered the pioneer of “Kurdish cinema” by some critics, the film centres around a family of nomadic shepherds divided by a blood-feud. Sürü is remarkable for its observation of the harshness of the nomadic life, as well as for its representation of the leading female character. Traumatised by the death of her three children, she is unable to speak, and this turns into a metaphor of the ban on the Kurdish language, a motif which also runs through Hakkâri’de Bir Mevsim (A Season in Hakkâri, Erden Kral, 1982) in which the village headman’s wife remains silent throughout the film, as well as in Eúkya, which features a leading female figure who refuses to speak. In the 1990s, Kurdish identity and the Kurdish culture became the subject of a pair of films, Siyabend ile Heco (Siyabend and Heco, ùahin Gök) and Mem-ü Zin (Mem and Zin, Ümit Elçi), both made in 1991, and both adaptations of Kurdish folklore. The latter, for instance, was adapted from a tragic love story with the same title by a Kurdish writer, and featured actors of Turkish origin. Mem and Zin, was shot in Turkish, dubbed into Kurdish and shown with Turkish subtitles in its re-release. This was permitted due to political efforts to reduce the level of hostility and recognize the Kurdish population as an ethnic minority by the then coalition government. It is worth noting that it became one of the most popular films of that year. Beginning at the end of the 1990s, Turkish cinema has seen an increasing number of films which focus on particular aspects of the Kurdish question. For example, while Güneúe Yolculuk (Journey to the

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Sun, Yeúim Ustao÷lu, 1999) features a growing friendship between a Turkish and a Kurdish boy, both portrayed by Kurdish actors, Büyük Adam Küçük Aúk (Hejar: Big Man, Little Love, Handan øpekçi, 2001) narrates the story of a five year old Kurdish girl, who is adopted by her nextdoor neighbour, a retired judge, after her parents are killed. The latter also touches on the language question, as it appears as an obstacle to the communication between the old man and the little girl. Similarly, language as an obstacle is a central motif in a mockumentary with a sophisticated sense of humor, øki Dil, Bir Bavul (On the Way to School, Özgür Do÷an and Orhan Eskiköy, 2008), in which a young primary school teacher from a western Anatolian town is appointed to teach Turkish to Kurdish students in a remote village in the southern Anatolia. In the last decade, several long and short films were produced by a Kurdish cultural institution, named Mesopotamia Cultural Center, established in østanbul. They were all directed by the young Kurdish filmmaker Kazm Öz, who in his recent feature film, Bahoz (Frtna/Storm, 2008) focuses on a group of leftist Kurdish university students concerned with identity politics in østanbul. Another example would be Min Dit (I Have Seen, 2009), the first feature film of a Kurdish director, Miraz Bezar, living in Germany. Coproduced by Fatih Akn’s Corazón International and shot entirely in Kurdish, the film is set in the southeastern city of Diyarbakr, and it is concerned with the survival struggle of two children, a brother and a sister, after their parents are killed. A recent award-winning film Press (Sedat Ylmaz, 2010), focuses on a group of young journalist in Diyarbakr in the early-1990s, struggling to publicize human rights violations. Finally, Meú (Yürüyüú/Walking, 2010) a film by Shiar Abdi, a Syrian filmmaker with Kurdish origins, but resident in Germany, is set in Mardin just before and after the coup d’etat of September–1980, and through the story of Xelio, a lunatic befriended by a group of children, it depicts the uneasy milieu of that era. As the above makes clear, Kurdish-related cinema in Turkey has so far dealt with the issues of language and identity questions, and the depiction of the suppression of the Kurdish minority, the solidarity of children and youngsters in the face of the violence they witness and experience in their immediate social surroundings through, indirect narrations or in more open stories, depending on the political and social climates of particular periods. The films mentioned above are realistic and socially oriented “art films”; and they are in a sense examples of a historical cinema in that they are concerned with the recent history of Turkish politics and society. Last but not least, I would like to focus on the films of Derviú Zaim, the Turkish-Cypriot filmmaker who is one of the leading names of Turkish

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art cinema. Zaim’s third feature film Çamur (Mud, 2003) can be considered as a first in many senses. First of all, Mud is an honest effort in the way in which it deals with the Cyprus conflict, at least in the history of Turkish cinema. Second, it is the first film focusing on the matter by a filmmaker who is a citizen of The Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, which has been officially recognised (but has been ignored, at the same time) only by Turkey. Third, Mud is the first feature film funded by Eurimages, and shot as an international co-production between Turkey, Cyprus and Italy, and screened in commercial cinemas. The film was seen by an audience of ten thousand in Turkey, a telling figure indicating the Turkish public’s lack of interest in the Cyprus question. Mud is set in the present time, and apart from a single scene shot in Northern Cyprus, it is filmed in different locations in Turkey. Criticised for being over-loaded with metaphors, the film focuses on four Turkish-Cypriot characters living in northern Cyprus. Mud’s narrative, however, privileges Ali, who has lost his voice after a mysterious illness and, therefore, cannot speak, a metaphor of the externalization and isolation of Turkish-Cypriots, which links Zaim’s film to the above mentioned productions featuring mute Kurdish characters. In his last film, Gölgeler ve Suretler (Shadows and Faces, 2010), Derviú Zaim takes the subject of the Cyprus question further, and returns to the beginning of the conflict, the early-1960s. Entirely shot in Northern Cyprus, first of all and maybe for the first time, the film takes advantage of the wide screen format to reveal the wonderful topography of the island, especially the beautiful landscape of Karpaz. This picturesque description of the landscape not only provides a visually exciting material for the aesthetic concerns of the film, but also contrasts with the conflict between the two communities, the Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, showing them as neighbours and the real residents of the island. Like Mud, Shadows and Faces was produced by international funds, namely The Global Film Initiative and Cinelink of Sarajevo Film Festival, and more importantly, it features professional local actors and actresses from both sides of Cyprus in the leading roles. As this indicates, Shadows and Faces is artistically (but not financially) a co-production between the Northern and Southern parts of the island. Not only its players, but also the rest of its production team and creative crew are drawn from both sides of the island. It can be argued that there is a considerable overlap between casting and narrative strategies of the film in that Zaim tells the story of only the characters who are residents of the island, excluding all other national, ethnic or cultural identities in the narrative, even the British authorities who divided the island and were active at the time the story is

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set. In terms of my purposes, another crucial aspect of Derviú Zaim’s cinema is the way in which he uses traditional Turkish culture in his films. Shadows and Faces is the final film of the trilogy named “Traditional Turkish Arts” by the director himself. While miniatures are functional as transitional passages between particular sequences in Cenneti Beklerken (Waiting for Heaven, 2006), Zaim uses calligraphy in Nokta (Dot, 2008). In Shadows and Faces, Derviú Zaim exploits shadow play theatre called Karagöz and Hacvat. The uncle of the leading young female figure, who disappears early in the film, operates a Karagöz and Hacvat show, through which he gives messages of wisdom, expressing Zaim’s own messages. This was exactly what the “National Cinema” adherents had wanted to do in the past, but had been unable to succeed. As I mentioned above, in the late 1960s, a small group of filmmakers initiated a debate over the condition of Turkish cinema. Led by Halit Refi÷, a director and critic, the “Ulusal Cinema” (“National Cinema”) group were concerned with possible definitions of the identity in the Turkish cinema. Refi÷ drew attention to the cinema’s role in “the de-colonisation of culture”, in a similar way to the “Third Cinema” theoretians. According to Refi÷, national arts were “vehicles of resistance and revolt for protecting national independence against the imperialist expansion of super powers”. For the adherents to the ‘National Cinema’ thesis, the major concern was to maintain the national identity in the construction and features of a film. The ingredients that would make a domestic film national were in the literary heritage, that is, folk tales, legends, romance stories, the palaceoriented Ottoman classical literature, traditional performing arts such as Karagöz and Hacvat, and Orta-oyunu, a theatrical genre once popular in Turkey. What is interesting in the case of Derviú Zaim is that, contrary to “National Cinema” adherents, he approaches both the traditional Turkish culture and Western cinematic conventions with no nationalistic impulses. To conclude, I would say that within the last twenty years, the cinema of Turkey has seen an unprecedented transformation which has brought about new markets, new film making practices, new technologies, the involvement of local and global funding institutions into film making, new cinematic approaches, styles, and themes, and new generations of filmmakers dealing with contemporary and conflicting issues.

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References Berghahn, Daniela (2006) “No place like home? Or impossible homecomings in the films of Fatih Akn”, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 4 (3): 141–157. Duncan, Derek (2005) “Stairway to heaven: Ferzan Özpetek and the revision of Italy”, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 3 (2): 101–113. Galt, Rosalind and Karl Schoonover (2010) “Introduction: The Impurity of Art Cinema”, in Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover (eds.), New York: Oxford University Press, 3–27. Göktürk, Deniz, David Gramling, Anton Kaes (eds.), Germany in Transit: Nation and Migration 1955–2005, London: University of California Press, 2007. Newman, Kathleen (1993) “National cinema after globalization: Fernando E. Solanas’ sur and the exiled nation”, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 14 (3): 69–83. Özkan, Evrim Töre (2010) østanbul Film Endüstrisi, østanbul: østanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yaynlar. Poirier, Agnès (2008) “Why Turkish film delights the critics”, The Guardian, February 26. Rich, B. Ruby (1995) “Homo pomo: the new queer cinema”, in New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader, Pam Cook and Philip Dodd (Eds.), London: Scarlet Press), 164–167. “Türk sinemas son 20 yln zirvesinde”, Radikal, 30.12.2010. Wayne, Mike (2002) The Politics of Contemporary European Cinema: Histories, Borders, Diasporas, Bristol: Intellect Books. Vossen, Ursula (1999) “Otobiyografik ö÷eler” (Translator: Gülriz Ergöz), Radikal, 29 Haziran. Yalçn-Heckmann, Lale (2003), “Kimlikler Üzerinde Pazarlk: Almanya’daki Farkl Türk Göçmen Kuúaklarnn Medyadaki Yansmalar”, in Kültür Fragmanlar: Türkiye’de Gündelik Hayat, Deniz Kandiyoti & Ayúe Saktanber (Eds.), Translator: Zeynep Yelçe, østanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 308-320.

Web Sites http://www.obs.coe.int (accessed in March 10, 2011) http://www.newyorktabesminare (accessed in December, 28, 2010) http://www.kurtlarvadisifilistin.com (accessed in February 12, 2011)

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Films mentioned Auslandstournee (Tour Abroad, Ayúe Polat, 2000) Av Mevsimi (Hunting Season, Yavuz Turgul, 2010) Bahoz (Frtna/Storm, Kazm Öz, 2008) Bal (Honey, Semih Kaplano÷lu, 2010) Beú Vakit (Times and Winds, Reha Erdem, 2006) Büyük Adam Küçük Aúk (Hejar: Big Man, Little Love, Handan øpekçi, 2001) Cenneti Beklerken (Waiting for Heaven, Derviú Zaim, 2006) Çamur (Mud, Derrviú Zaim, 2003) Çok Film Hareketler Bunlar (Comedy Ktichen: Holiday Recipes, Ozan Açktan, 2009) Dersimiz Atatürk (Today’s Lesson is on Atatürk, Hamdi Alkan, 2010) Eúkya (The Bandit, Yavuz Turgul 1996) Eyvah! Eyvah! (Oh My God! Oh My God!, Hakan Algül, 2009) Ferien (Vacation, Thomas Arslan, 2007) Finnischer Tango (Finnish Tango, Buket Alakuú, 2008) Gegen die Wand (Head-On, Fatih Akn, 2004) Gölgeler ve Suretler (Shadows and Faces, Derviú Zaim, 2010) Güneúe Yolculuk (Journey to the Sun, Yeúim Ustao÷lu, 1999) Güneúi Gördüm (I’ve Seen the Sun, Mahsun Krmzgül, 2009) Hakkâri’de Bir Mevsim (A Season in Hakkâri, Erden Kral, 1982) Hayat Var (My Only Sunshine, Reha Erdem, 2008) øki Dil, Bir Bavul (On the Way to School, Özgür Do÷an and Orhan Eskiköy, 2008) øklimler (Climates, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2006) østanbul Kanatlarmn Altnda (Istanbul, Under My Wings, Mustafa Altoklar, 1995) Im Schatten (In the Shadows, Thomas Arslan, 2010) Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) Jerichow (Christian Petzold, 2008) Kanak Attack (Lars Becker, 2000) Kozmos (Cosmos, Reha Erdem, 2009) Kurtlar Vadisi: Filistin (Valley of the Wolves Palestine, Zübeyr ùaúmaz, 2010) Mem-ü Zin (Mem and Zin, Ümit Elçi, 1991) Meú (Yürüyüú/Walking, Shiar Abdi, 2010) Min Dit (I Have Seen, Miraz Bezar, 2009) Mine Vaganti (Loose Cannons, Ferzan Özpetek, 2010) New York’ta Beú Minare (Five Minarets in New York, Mahsun Krmzgül, 2010)

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Nokta (Dot, Derviú Zaim, 2008) Press (Sedat Ylmaz, 2010) Recep Ivedik 3 (ùahan Gökbakan, 2010) Siyabend ile Heco (Siyabend and Heco, ùahin Gök, 1991) Soul Kitchen (Fatih Akn, 2009) Sürü (The Herd, Zeki Ökten, 1978) Süt (Milk, Semih Kaplano÷lu, 2008) The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (David Slade, 2010) Uzak (Distant, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002) Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2008) Veda (Farewell, Zülfü Livaneli, 2009) Yahúi Bat (The Ottoman Cowboys, Ömer Faruk Sorak, 2009) Yumurta (Egg, Semih Kaplano÷lu, 2007)

TRANSFORMING HOSPITALITY: FORMING NEW TRANSCULTURAL FIELDS IN TURKISH CINEMA SERHAN MERSIN AND PINAR YILDIZ

Introduction: New Vocabularies of World and National Cinemas Transformation of new Turkish cinema through its migrant, exilic and diasporic characteristics has undoubtedly initiated new topics of debate for Turkish film scholars. The notion of national cinema, and its new transnational position via the new modes of co-production, distribution, authorship, consummation, or even different cinematic styles or film themes lead to the emergence of new discussion vocabularies. These discussions, of course, neither commenced within or are limited to the changing aspects of Turkish transnational cinema. Since 1960’s, the concepts of coloniality/postcoloniality, hybridity, multiculturalism, nationalism/post-nationalism, racism, the position of the Other, the representation of binary distinctions, or the cultural perspectives of arrivants (newcomers), immigrants, refugees, exiles, asylum seekers, and undecidables are debated within the framework of cinema all over the world. These debates have supported the emergence of new theories as one might expect. Different scholars and film theorists have contributed to the literature through different and diverse perspectives. The list includes, but is not limited to, Hamid Naficy’s notion of “accented cinema”, who makes a distinction between exilic, diasporic, and postcolonial ethnic and identity filmmakers in his book An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (2001); the “banlieue or beur cinema” of Carrie Tarr, who focuses on the life of ethnics in the suburbs of major French cities in her book Reframing Difference: Beur and banlieue filmmaking in France (2005). Other relevant work includes Laura Marks’ The Skin of Film: Intercultural Cinema Embodiment and the Senses (2000) with its emphasis on culture rather than nation; Thomas Elsaesser’s article “Double occupancy and small adjustments: Space, place and policy in the New

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European Cinema since the 1990s” (2005), which emphasizes cinema of hyphenated identities living in a different culture; and Sarita Malik’s article “Beyond ‘the cinema of duty’? The pleasures of hybridity: Black British film of the 1980s and 1990s” (1996), referring to documentarist cinema based on social issues. All these different perspectives and theories should certainly assist in understanding Turkish cinema and its transnational character. In this paper, our aim is to approach the transnational character of Turkish cinema through its capacity to form transcultural fields, which highlights its intercultural character. Our analysis starts with the foreigner question defined by Derrida, who makes a distinction between two different aspects of hospitality as unconditional/absolute and conditional. Derrida points out that, although these aspects conflict, in a broader sense they complete each other and are indissociable. Through the discussion on these two aspects of hospitality, we believe that it is possible to extend the hospitality between host and guest to the idea of hospitality between host and guest cultures. The relationship between host and guest cultures bring us to the notion of cultural hybridity, described by Bhabha in his book Location of Culture (1994, 2005), in which he claims that cultural difference is never absolute, and the host (colonizer) and guest (colonized) are interdependent. For Bhabha, “colonial identities are unstable, agonized, and in constant flux” (Loomba, 1998: 178). Culture is located heterogeneously but in “in-between” spaces, which is called the third space. Through an analysis of third space, later, we will examine two Turkish films, Berlin in Berlin (directed by Sinan Çetin, 1993) and Hamam (directed by Ferzan Özetek, 1997). We believe these two films are rich enough to provide clear examples of the Derridaian sense of hospitality, and Bhabhaian sense of third space. In order to justify this stance, we examine the roots of Derrida’s views, i.e., Levinas’s philosophy on unconditional welcome, and also the Kantian view of cosmopolitanism regulated by strict conditions. Following this, we analyze, Bhabha’s ideas on cultural difference through a postcolonial perspective, and the concept of hybridity is discussed in detail in order to allow an examination of transcultural fields in Turkish cinema.

What is Hospitality? Derrida on Levinas In Derrida, hospitality is an aporia defined accordingly whether it is conditional or unconditional. This distinction emerges from his descriptions of the (singular) law and the (plural) laws of hospitality:

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The law of unlimited hospitality (to give the new arrival all of one’s home and oneself, to give him or her one’s own, our own, without asking a name, or compensation, or the fulfilment of even the smallest condition), and on the other hand, the laws (in the plural), those rights and duties that are always conditioned and conditional, as they are defined by the GrecoRoman tradition and even the Judeo-Christian one, by all of law and all philosophy of law up to Kant and Hegel in particular, across the family, civil society, and the State (Derrida, 2000: 77).

In mentioning Greco-Roman or Judeo-Christian traditions, of course, Derrida is trying to establish a view for the present. Actually, the distinction he makes on hospitality is mainly derived from two different philosophers’ works: The Kantian aspect of cosmopolitanism, which establishes the fundamentals of institutionalized peace, and Levinas’s view of hospitality, which goes beyond political realms and is evaluated on ethical and juridical principles. In his tribute book to Levinas, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas (1999), Derrida analyses Levinas’s profound ideas on hospitality, especially based on his Totality and Infinity (1969), as he puts forward, “Totality and Infinity bequeaths to us an immense treatise of hospitality” (Derrida, 1999: 21), and later he develops these views by deconstructing them. Influenced by Levinas’s ideas, Derrida discusses the ethical (and philosophical) realm regarding the notion of distinction between absolute and conditional hospitality, which is based on the philosophical question of being foreigner, stranger, new arrival, sanspapiers (“without papers”), or in broader terms, the guest of a host. For Derrida, ethics is hospitality and vice versa: “ethics is so thoroughly coextensive with the experience of hospitality” (Derrida, 2005: 17). He makes an ethical definition of absolute hospitality. For him, absolute hospitality requires that the guest should not be responsible for any debt or be asked for reciprocity. The guest should not even require an invitation. Therefore, hospitality can only be shared, it cannot be exchanged between host and guest, or forced to conform to rules undefined or defined: Absolute hospitality requires that I open up my home and that I give not only to the foreigner (provided with a family name, with the social status of being a foreigner, etc.), but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous other, and that I give place to them, that I let them come, that I let them arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them either reciprocity (entering into a pact) or even their names. The law of absolute hospitality commands a break with hospitality by right, with law or justice as rights (Derrida, 2000: 25).

The sharing between the guest and hosts commences with the very first question: “What is your name? [Comment t’appelles-tu?]” This is a way of

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welcoming; however, it is not a necessary step since hospitality consists of not only an interrogation of the new arrival by a request for a name, but also providing an unquestioning welcome, i.e., a welcome without asking any question to new arrival. Here, there is an important difference for Derrida, which is both “subtle and fundamental” (2005: 67) to emphasize the two regimes of hospitality. As said earlier, pure hospitality excludes any conditions/questions imposed on new arrivals. On the other hand, the aforementioned question helps to address the foreigner, by addressing him with a proper name. The most important point here is “avoiding this question becoming a condition, a police inquisition, a registration of information, or straightforward frontier control” (Derrida, 2005: 67). The newcomer described in unconditional hospitality is an absolute foreigner, the “other”. He is the one we know nothing about; the one never identified, or given a name. Derrida describes the absolute other as the arrivant: “He or she who comes, coming to be where s/he was not expected, where one was awaiting him or without waiting for him or her, ...without knowing what or whom to expect” (Naas, 2008: 29). Taking the risk of its own, pure hospitality does not require us to know in advance who the newcomer is. The arrivant can be a danger for family, society, or country. Therefore, hostility between host and foreigner can emerge. The arrivant can thus be a pharmakon: a remedy or a poison, good or evil, positive or negative (Bauman, 1991:55). This does not change the law which implies openness to the newcomer, in any case or under any condition. On the other hand, the conditional hospitality depicts the foreigner with an emphasis on power relationship. The host has the power or sovereignty over the newcomer; he determines, selects, and identifies the foreigner who has a name, social status or family (Naas, 2008: 24) to accept passing through the threshold of home. The undetermined others are not allowed to be guests. The guest is the one who crosses the threshold of the home. Derrida grants this crossing not only as a denial of distinction between host and guest but also confirmation of this distinction (Derrida, 2007: 237). The second philosopher Derrida uses to develop ideas of hospitality is Kant, whose political approach to hospitality and cosmopolitanism is defined in his book Perpetual Peace (1795/1992), where he states that hospitality is concerned with the rights of the stranger. In his understanding of hospitality, the visitor has the right not to be treated with hostility in a place where he will only stay for a limited time under the sovereignty of the host (1992: 137) For Kant, the relation between the guest and the host is one of power. The host remains as host and the guest should remain as guest: “[T]he host, the hôte, the Wirt, the one who

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receives, lodges or gives asylum remains the patron, the master of the household, on the condition that he keeps the authority of himself in his home” (Derrida, 2001: 254). Another condition Kant imposes on hospitality is the right of visitation; the foreigner can cross the threshold, but cannot stay permanently. Kant’s analysis of cosmopolitanism provides a political basis regarding state, citizenship, and period of visitation. However, he does not mention possibility of unconditional law or absolute hospitality. Derrida, in this sense, disagrees with Kant since this restricted understanding will bring subordination and sovereignty against foreigners, and thus he tries to establish a concept which goes beyond simply regulating the rights of foreigner.

Transforming New Transcultural Fields and Bhabha’s Third Space The unconditional law of hospitality is obviously impossible in the present-day. There can be no invitation without rules or regulations. Moreover, for Derrida, unconditionality brings the host, the master to be the guest of the house, and on the other hand the guest to be the host: “The guest (hôte) becomes the host (hôte) of the host (hôte)” (2000: 125). The unlimited welcoming of the guest without any condition makes it possible to change the roles as the host gives up all his responsibilities to the guest. Because the guest is at home, the host, when coming from outside, has to enter his home through the guest, who now becomes the host: “We thus enter from the inside: the master of the house is at home, but nonetheless he comes to enter his home through the guest—who comes from outside” (p. 125). The openness of the host identifies the limits of hospitality, and also the sovereignty of the host. The host becomes hostage of his own welcoming-capacity. Derrida gives the example of biblical story of Lot, who offers his two virgin daughters to the Sodomites when they come to seek the guests in his home (2000: 151). In order to protect his guests, Lot, staying loyal to the law of hospitality, offers his daughters to the soldiers, placing the law of hospitality above moral values. Thus, a hierarchy arises, between guests and host, as guests become the host. In Derrida, hospitality is also defined as culture. In his terms, hospitality is culture itself (2005: 16). Thus, culture and hospitability can be integrated into each other. This presents the idea of expanding the notion of hospitality from a relationship between individuals to cultures. Cultures are hospitable, which means they can exchange values with each other, i.e., they can change, mix together and form hybrid structures. In a

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broader sense, the host and guest relationship can be extended to a relationship between host and guest cultures in order to form new transcultural fields. In the Derridean way of saying, the guest (hôte) culture becomes the host (hôte) of the host (hôte) culture. This transformation can be discussed in the context of reconstructing or redestructing the borders, the interaction between the cultures, and deconstituting or reconstituting the hierarchy via the host and guest relationship. Transformation through guest and host cultures is closely tied up with the notion of cultural hybridity. In postcolonial discourse, the concept of hybridity has a central place, especially in Bhabha’s theory of culture. Bhabha is critical of multiculturalism, which imposes the formation of unique cultural identities inside communities. He denounces the view of the homogenous space of national state, and explains the notion of “the nation as a narrative”, as an “intermittent time, and intersticial space, emer[ging] as a structure of undecidability at the frontiers of cultural hybridity” (1990: 312). Therefore, Bhabha’s discussion of cultural hybridity starts with his emphasis on cultural difference, rather than cultural diversity. For Bhabha, the endorsement of cultural diversity gives rise to two important problems. The first is that cultural diversity involves a corresponding containment of entertainment and encouragement (Rutherford, 1990: 208). This means that the host society or dominant culture determines the norms, through the containment of cultural difference with the justification that, “these other cultures are fine, but we must be able locate them within our grid” (Rutherford, 1990: 208). Multiculturalism emphasizes the rights of the “other” and tries to protect these, but on the other hand it, also justifies the idea of a specific (or dominant) community having the rights to do whatever necessary to protect its unique cultural identity. The second problem associated with cultural diversity is that in multicultural societies, violent racism is still spreading. This is because, according to Bhabha, “universalism permits diversity masks ethnocentric norms, values and interests” (Rutherford, 1990: 208). Thus, cultural diversity is, for Bhabha, inadequate in explaining the position of culture. The notion of cultural difference opens up a space for liminality or in-betweenness regarding “alterity” and “otherness”: Cultures are only constituted in relation to that otherness internal to their own symbol-forming activity which makes them decentred structurethrough that displacement or liminality opens up the possibility of articulating different, even incommensurable cultural practices and priorities (Rutherford, 1990: 210-211).

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It is the liminal space where, according to Bhabha, multiple negotiations perform as part of negations, and where “other narratives of the people and their difference” (1990: 300) are made possible. Bhabha also introduces the notion of cultural translation in order “to suggest that all forms of culture are in some way related to each other, because culture is a signifying or symbolic activity” (Rutherford, 1990: 210). The notion of cultural translation originally comes from Benjamin’s article, “The Task of Translator”, in which the author proposes that a translation does not have to refer to original text, nor even to carry a meaning. For Benjamin, the relationship between the original and translation is like a tangent: “Just as a tangent touches a circle fleetingly and at only a single point, and just as this contact, not the point, prescribes the law in accord with which the tangent pursues its path into the infinite”, the translation touches the original text, i.e., circle, at one point and follows its path (Benjamin, 1997: 163). This metaphor takes the issue of originality as a problem. Actually, the idea that any culture is inherently pure or original is open to debate, due to the fact that other cultures contradict the authority of that culture (in Rutherford, 1990: 210). Cultural translation counteracts “essentialism of a prior given original or originary or culture”, therefore “all forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity” (Rutherford, 1990: 211). The process of hybridity is positioned in a wider framework called third space, which in Bhabha’s terms, “displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are inadequately understood through received wisdom” (Rutherford, 1990: 211). Third space helps to transcend the problematic binary divisions between inclusion/exclusion, or us/them. Instead of talking about negation, Bhabha prefers negotiation and translation. The third space is “the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the inbetween space” (Bhabha, 2005: 56). That is how “to elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of ourselves” (Bhabha, 2005: 56). Migrancy can be seen as a state of indeterminacy or in-betweenness. In this sense, it is possible to say that not only migrants, but also all the others, i.e., refugees, asylum seekers, sans-papiers, occupy a place of hybridity. They are also a component of the discussions regarding cultural translation and hybridity. Therefore, it is possible to discuss the transcultural formations of migrants through third space, which makes it possible to consider the possibility of a negotiation between dominant (host) culture and migrant (guest) cultures. The third space is the place for negotiation, from which other positions emerge. Two distinct cultures

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occupy a third space of enunciation and the culture is disseminated, forming a hybrid identity. The encounter with the other, in Derrrida’s view, also creates a new language. This language corresponds with third space in Bhabha. He defines third space as a new space for negotiation of belongings and identities: “The third space can be located beyond the bipolarity of us and them and thus is a territory where we can escape the dilemma of dichotomies and hierarchies” (Stolt, 2010: 1). In line with the thinking of Bhabha and Derrida, this paper discusses the two afore mentioned films, both of which can be considered as stories of encounter with the other, in order to discover if this encounter can create a new language and space. Thus, we will try to answer the question how these films can be positioned within the context of the definition of hospitality (in Derridaian sense) and their potentials to introduce third spaces (in Bhabhaian sense) and transcultural fields.

Berlin in Berlin: Foreigner in One’s Own Country Berlin in Berlin is the story of a Turkish family and a German engineer who are obliged to live together for a while in an apartment in BerlinKreuzberg, which has the largest Turkish community in Germany. The German engineer, Thomas, works on a construction site, and is also an amateur photographer. He takes pictures of his colleague Mehmet’s wife, Dilber, without her noticing. When Mehmet sees the enlarged photographs of his wife hung on the walls of Thomas’ office, he becomes angry, assuming his wife posed for the camera intentionally and this leads to a serious argument with his wife. Thomas tries to calm down Mehmet; however, Mehmet is killed accidentally after he is pushed into an iron bar. Suffering a pang of conscience, Thomas finds Dilber to apologize and tries to explain that it was an accident and he did not intend to kill her husband. However, Dilber’s brothers-in-law discover that the death was not an accident, and they chase Thomas to kill him. Thomas manages to evade the angry brothers-in-law and hide in an apartment, which turns out to be, by great coincidence, the actual apartment where Dilber and the family live. After he is found in the apartment, Mürtüz, the eldest brother prepares to shoot him. However, he is stopped by the grandmother, who declares that Thomas is a guest sent by God, and according to tradition he cannot be harmed inside the apartment. This is how Thomas’ life starts as a foreign guest, a stranger inside the walls of the apartment. As long as he stays within the threshold, his life will be spared, but as soon as he leaves, he will be killed.

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The relationship between Thomas and the family gradually improves and the apartment is later transformed to be a hybrid place, a third space for negotiation, a transcultural territory between different cultures. Derrida defines hospitality as the encounter of the uninvited: “Absolute hospitality requires that I open my home and that I give not only to foreigner but also unknown I give place to them that I let them come. Pure hospitality excludes any conditions/questions imposed on new arrival” (2000: 25). Thomas is not invited to the apartment. However, he has been accepted without condition, in his absolute otherness. His belonging to another culture has to be disregarded. Thus, hospitality in Berlin in Berlin is shaped as Thomas becomes familiar with Turkish culture. He starts learning Turkish and he finds it easy to adopt to the traditions, for instance, in religious festivals (bayram), like the others, he kisses the hands of the grandmother as a way of showing respect. He becomes a part of the apartment and the family. Outside the apartment, Mürtüz and his brothers are faced with the harsh problems which the migrants are normally exposed to, for instance, they are beaten by racists. However, although Thomas represents the dominant German culture outside, inside he remains a guest. He is given food, plays classical music on the guitar, and helps fix the T.V. which breaks down during a national football match between Turkey and Germany. Thus, his enforced stay becomes a field for his recognition. The door is a barrier not only between two cultures, but also the cultural differences between the family members. Thomas is a catalyst for the revelation of the contradictions in the family, the differences between brothers and generations. The four generations living in the apartment each have different attitudes to Thomas. Inside the apartment the two different cultures try to understand and get to know each other as time passes. At first, Thomas gazes at the family, but after a time the family members also begin to gaze at him. As Derrida points out, there exists a pressure on the guest from the host. However, in Berlin in Berlin the sovereignty of the host culture over the guest is dispersed. Rather, an intercultural field is formed. That is to say, the cultures are transformed. During his stay in the apartment, Thomas learns to take part in Turkish customs. Actually, this is an inversion of the position of a Turkish worker in Germany, who performs the foreignness of language. The Turkish worker, according to John Berger, is identified by the object of loss written on its body: They watch the gestures made and learn to imitate them…the repetition by which gesture is laid upon gesture, precisely but inexorably, the pile of gestures being stacked minute by minute, hour by hour is exhausting.…He

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In Berlin in Berlin, it is Thomas who tries to learn gestures, without understanding the words, carrying his silence with him. The roles imposed on the Turkish gastarbeiter are exchanged, and Thomas, in the apartment, abandons his heimlich national culture for a new one, which is unheimlich for him in the beginning. This position is a representation that host/guest relationship is mobile and fragile, since it would be possible for Thomas to exist in the apartment without adopting these rules. His position can change due to the attitude of the host. However, his effort to exist within the family shows that cultural differences always impact on each other. A third space is always possible and valid.

Hamam: Is Another Place Possible? Hamam is a film about the cultural transformation of a married couple, Francesco and Marta, living in Rome, when Francesco unexpectedly learns that he has inherited a hamam (Turkish bathhouse) in østanbul from his aunt Anita, who is also known as Madame. Francesco, who is an architect, travels to Istanbul in order to sell this hamam of his aunt, who had been living in Istanbul for years after she left Italy and had started a new life there. On his arrival in the house where her aunt lived with a Turkish family, Francesco is welcomed with great hospitality. His visit becomes a journey through which he discovers both Istanbul and himself. Instead of selling the hamam, Francesco decides to decorate it with the help of family members. At this point, Francesco’s wife Marta also arrives in Istanbul to announce the end of their marriage due to her relationship with her colleague, and discovers Francesco’s gay relationship with Mehmet, the son of the family. Marta and Francesco decide to divorce after a quarrel. However, Francesco is stabbed by a member of mafia, who had plans for the building where the hamam is located. After her husband’s death, Marta takes over the hamam and everything he has left behind. The movie, starting with Francesco’s self-discovery, concludes with Marta making great changes in her life and deciding to stay in Istanbul. Francesco is an uninvited guest. His position as a guest starts as soon as he crosses the threshold of the house where the Turkish family lives. After his identity is approved, he is invited into the house. A room is prepared for his stay. At the first dinner with the family, he is warmly welcomed. At first, he plans to sell the inherited hamam as soon as possible and return to Italy. However, he delays his return as he gets to

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know the city, people and culture. The dinners with the family, the circumcision feast he attends, and the Istanbul streets all help him to understand and become familiar with the foreign culture. Working together with the family members on renovating the hamam draws him closer to them. Similarly, Marta, after reading the aunt’s letters, becomes closer to both Istanbul and the hamam, which she had not previously reconciled herself to. The hamam owned by Madame, at the center of the story, is a space where the borders between host/guest are obscured. Similar to the apartment in Berlin, the hamam can be considered a third space. The hamam seizes on the idea of Bhabha’s third space to describe the encounter with the cultural other: “Hamam represents the third space where people can negotiate their fixed cultural identities and hybridise with the other” (Stolt, 2010: 2). Moreover, the hamam, in Bhabhian sense, can be seen as a place for gathering: Gatherings of exiles and émigrés and refugees; gatherings on the edge of “foreign” cultures; gatherings in the ghettos or cafés of city centres; gatherings in the half –life, half-light of foreign tongues, or in the uncanny fluency of another’s language; gatherings the approval and acceptance, degrees, discourses, disciplines; gathering the memories of underdevelopment, of other worlds lived retroactively; gathering the past in a ritual of revival; gathering the present (Bhabha, 1990: 291).

Hamam is a space where different people come together, irrespective of their origins, ethnic identities, ethical attitudes, skin colors, sexual preferences, class differences, life styles, migrancies, languages spoken, or fluencies. Everybody is approved, everybody can live their past or present without borders. It is a place for negotiation, for foreign and even domestic cultures. It was the Madame who was first seduced by hamam, who was withdrawn by the glamour and fascination inside. For Madame, thus, another place was possible. Additionally, she was keeping a secret. She could surveil the customers through a small hole at top of the hamam, and thus attain the power that nobody else could. If we metaphorically think of the hamam as a panopticon1, she was the sole observer of it. By 1

The panopticon was first proposed as a model prison by Jeremy Bentham (17481832), a theorist of British legal reform. The concept was later used by French philosopher Michel Foucault, who described the implications of 'Panopticism' in his work Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975). The Panopticon, meaning "all-seeing", “functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the 'inspector' who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial configuration.

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her death, this power was transferred to Marta. In the end of the film, smoking on the rooftop of hamam, “[Marta] moves from a socially mediated desire (Rome) to enjoyment (Istanbul), from Marta to Madame” (Diken and Laustsen, 2010: 60). This transformation creates a world of fantasy for her: the pleasure of scopholia. Her discovery of the sexual relationship between her husband and Mehmet was made possible through the secret small hole at the rooftop. The desire is transformed to the third space in Orient, now as an enjoyment of gaze. However, this transformation may arouse criticism against Hamam for reproducing the dichotomies of the West versus the East, Rome versus Istanbul, etc. Diken and Laustsen point out that this assessment misses something essential regarding orientalism: “Something has to mediate between the two poles, letters, persons, and objects, allowing for substitutions and metamorphoses” (2010: 44). In Berlin in Berlin, the encounter of two cultures does not evolve into a space where the strict borders disappear, but Hamam mediates these two axes. The sovereignty of the host culture over the guest is not disseminated but removed. Thus, the cultures are transformed as well.

Conclusion: Cross-Cultural Interaction and Cinema’s Potential The negotiation between unconditional and conditional hospitality indicates that they cannot be separated from or reduced to each other. As is the case in other conflicting situations, such as taking the role of either friend or enemy, one involves the other. On one hand, the hospitality involves the threat of being conditional, but on the other it entails the influences from the unconditional. Indeed, Derrida, while making a distinction between conditional and unconditional hospitality, does not aim to propose that one regime of hospitality is to be exchanged for the other. Rather, he tries to establish a vision which can take today’s political and ethical problems, such as the immigration issue, racism or even sovereignty of one over another, into a humanitarian phase and discuss the possibilities of opening spaces to all human beings. This openness is discussed in this article as a third space in the context of the possibility of hybridity and formation of transcultural fields. Because they give the opportunity for the formation of transcultural fields, Hamam and Berlin in Berlin have been analyzed to examine the possible The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled” (“Theory of Surveillance”, 2011).

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impacts that different cultures have on each other. In the two films, transforming the host and guest cultures cause interaction between them (i.e., a cross-cultural interaction). Thus, the borders are reconstructed and re-destructed; the host and guest relationship is de-constituted and reconstituted. Actually, emerging as a new place where different cultures encounter each other, cinema itself has a huge potential for being a third space metaphorically. Telling stories from different cultures, cinema can present encounters between “them” and “us” or host and guest, and more importantly, try to explore the position of other. It can destruct borders (between people and nations), or, reconstitute host/guest sovereignty relationships, and remain intact with co-existing cultures while doing that. In contrast, cinema also has the potential to reconstruct prejudice about the “other”. It might, as Burns asserts, reduce protagonists to stereotypes, depict the migrant as victim and focus excessively on conflict of an intercultural or intracultural kind (2007: 3). To avoid this, a cinema embracing the otherness and differences should challenge these modes of representation. This is an indispensible way to form transcultural fields.

References Bauman, Z. (1991). Modernity and Ambivalence. New York: Cornell University Press. Benjamin, W. (1997). “The Translators Task, Walter Benjamin (Translation)” (Translated by Steven Rendall). TTR: traduction, terminology, rédaction, vol. 10, no 2, pp. 151-165. Bhabha, H. K (1990). “DissemiNation”. In Nation and Narration. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 291-322. —. (1994, 2005). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Burn, R. (2007). Towards a Cinema of Cultural Hybridity: Turkish German Filmmakers and the Representation of Alterity. Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, vol. 15, no 1, pp. 3-24. Derrida, J. (1999). Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. California: Stanford University Press. —. (2000). Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida To Respond. (R. Bowlby, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. —. (2001). On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. (M. Dooley and R. Kearney, Trans.). New York: Routledge. —. (2005). Paper Machine. (R. Bowlby, Trans.). California: Stanford University Press.

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—. (2007). Hostipitality. In B. Stocker (Ed.), Jacques Derrida Basic Writings. New York: Routledge, pp. 243-263. Diken, B. (2010). Filmlerle Sosyoloji. østanbul: Metis. Elsaesser, T. (2005). “Double occupancy and small adjustments: Space, place and policy in the New European Cinema since the 1990s”. In: European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 108-130. Kant, I. (1991). Perpetual Peace. (H.B Nisbet, Trans.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Loomba, A. (1998). Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London and New York: Routledge. Malik, S. (1996). “Beyond "the cinema of duty"? The pleasures of hybridity: Black British film of the 1980s and 1990s”. In: Andrew Higson (ed.), Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema. London: Cassell, pp. 202-215. Marks, L. U. (2000). The Skin of Film: Intercultural Cinema Embodiment and the Senses. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Naas, M. (2008). Derrida From Now On. New York: Fordham University Press. Naficy, H. (2001). An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rutherford, J. (1990). The Third Space. Interview with Homi Bhabha. In: Ders. (Hg): Identity, Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrance and Wishart. p. 207-221. Stolt, R. (2010). Homi Bhaba’s Third Space in Özpetek’s Cinema. Nordersted: GRIN Verlag. Tarr, C. (2005). Reframing Difference: Beur and banlieue filmmaking in France. Manchester: Manchester University Press. “Theory of Surveillance: The Panopticon”. http://www.cartome.org/panopticon1.htm.

HABITATS OF MEANING: TURKISH-GERMAN CINEMA AND GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES AYÇA TUNÇ COX

From Cartographies to Chronotopes Diasporas and diasporic cinema primarily focuses on the notion of mobility; hence, the importance of space in the ongoing discussions about diaspora. However, the significant role of temporality in the formation of diasporic identities should not be underplayed, nor the spatiality over emphasised through the prominence of terms such as displacement, dislocation, deterritorialisation, and so on. Diasporic subjects not only challenge the stability of space and the concomitant fixed sense of belonging to a place, but they also urge us to consider the trajectory of experiences that are likely to change over time, as exemplified by the Turkish community in Germany. Here comes the issue of generation, since the character and structure of a diasporic community as well as identification processes of individuals can, and frequently do, change over time.1 It has been observed that successive generations of diasporic groups in a host country are more willing to integrate and to adopt the social/cultural customs of the host country, and tend to be less interested in returning to their country of origin compared to the older members of their diasporic community. This basic conflict between generations indicates the changing perception of “self” as a member of an ethnic group and the resultant diverse identity formations within the same community, altering from one generation to another. Not privileging space over time, but conceiving them as mutually interdependent instead, suggests a shift from “cartographies”2 to 1

See Radhakrishnan 2003, for instance, for an analysis of generational differences within the Indian diaspora in the USA. 2 See Brah 1996 for instance.

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“chronotopes”3 in the analysis of diasporic subjects and their work. By particularly stressing the duality inherent in diaspora experience; namely, both the spatial dimension, which is the most common characteristic widely pointed out in literature, and also the comparatively neglected temporality, I will elaborate the process and the importance of memory in relation to generation within the diasporic context and how their combined effects shape the construction of “self” and its reflection. In this context, I will analyse a number of films about the Turkish diasporic community and their experiences in Germany on the basis of the shift in the representation of space over time. Tevfik Baúer’s films, as pioneering examples, will be analysed in conjunction with the work of German filmmakers who dealt with the issue of immigration and the problems of the guest workers in their country at the time, since this group can all be categorised as the observers/outsiders who were not the members of the Turkish community in Germany that they problematised. Baúer was probably the most acclaimed Turkish filmmaker, concerned with the Turkish guest workers in Germany at the time, and for that reason, he has erroneously been described in literature as the most prominent “first generation” Turkish filmmaker in Germany.4 In order to track any discontinuities and similarities, the films of the second generation Turks in Germany, that is, so-called Turkish-German films, will be evaluated in terms of the points they have in common as well as how they differ from the first examples made by the observers of the Turkish life in Germany. The films of the incoming third generation filmmakers of Turkish descent in Germany will also be examined in order to identify any possible shift in their thematic concerns, visual style and narrative strategies. After enduring the process of migration, discrimination, and later on, the enforcement and expectation of integration as adults, the first generation of Turkish guest workers are likely to interpret these events differently from their successors. It was not an indirect experience for them since they were the firsthand subjects of the ongoing process. Moreover, the first guest workers experienced extremely difficult working and living conditions in Germany, which can be seen as the main reason for not being able to invest any time or energy in the aestheticisation of their social conditions. Artistic production can only be possible, writes 3 Mikhail Bakhtin used the term “chronotope” in order to refer to the “intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed” (1997a). Also see Ganser et al. 2006 for the application of the concept to the analysis of film genres. 4 See Burns 2009; Fachinger 2007 and Genç 2004 for instance.

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Svetlana Boym, “when the initial hardships are over and the immigrant can afford the luxury of leisurely reflection” (2001: 254). In this respect, it is not surprising that there were so few filmmakers that belong to the first generation Turkish guest workers in Germany. Tevfik Baúer, who is commonly referred as a first generation Turkish filmmaker in Germany in the literature, was not actually a member of the Turkish community in question since he originally went to Germany to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg for a limited period of time, namely between 1980 and 1987. Moreover, the fact that he had gone to England, again in order to study for five years prior to his education in Hamburg, indicates his privileged social status compared to that of the guest workers, who were mostly from rural Anatolia, many without even primary education, and with no qualifications or choice other than going to Germany to be able to make a future for themselves and their children. Consequently, it seems plausible to consider Tevfik Baúer as an observer rather than a first generation Turkish filmmaker in Germany. This also allows me to regard the films of German filmmakers such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hark Bohm, under the same category, as Baúer, as outsiders who were opinionated about, and problematised, the experiences of guest workers in Germany. When it comes to the second generation Turkish filmmakers, who are also so-called Turkish-Germans, implying the different nature and impact of the integration process on them, it can be argued that they will remember, perceive and experience the same incidents from an alternative perspective, and probably by means of their parents’ stories, that is, via “postmemory”. Postmemory, according to Marianne Hirsch, is “the relationship that the generation after those who witnessed cultural or collective trauma bears to the experiences of those who came before, experiences that they remember only by means of the stories, images and behaviors among which they grew up” (2008: 106). I contend that this inevitably shapes their work, leading to particular, different artistic expressions. Therefore, here, regardless as to whether they were born or brought up in Germany, Fatih Akn (1973), Yüksel Yavuz (1964), Ayúe Polat (1970) and Thomas Arslan (1962), who all began making films in the late 1990s, with a similar approach despite their disparate individual styles, have been chosen as the examples of second generation diasporic Turkish filmmakers on the basis that they spent their formative years in the host country rather than their putative country of origin. The latest generation of Turkish filmmakers in Germany constitutes a slightly different category from both the pioneer filmmakers who dealt with the issue of guest workers, and the second generation, who functioned

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as mediators between the first and the third generations. They are mostly German citizens who were born and raised in Germany, and thus, the entirety of their socialisation process was in the German education system. Not only does the third generation have the benefits of total integration, they are generally able to remember the actual migration process via “prosthetic memory”, determining their particular perception of the events and shaping their self-consciousness. “It is not authentic or natural but rather derived from engagement with mediated representations (seeing a film, visiting a museum, watching a television show) … These are sensuous memories produced by an experience of mass mediated representations” (Landsberg 2003: 149-50). Prosthetic memory, therefore, can be explained as a memory gained through various products of mass media and new communication technologies rather than a personal contact, indicating the ever-decreasing effect of the past events, particularly of the migration and the experience of being a stranger, the ultimate “other” in a totally alien society. In this context, I analyse the films of Kemal Görgülü and Hakan Savaú Mican (1978), examining the changing filmmaking styles and thematic concerns resulting from the specific generation location they occupy.

Limited Habitats for the Guest workers Inscribed in the changing self-perception of each generation is a differing sense of belonging, which essentially is related to their varied associations with space. As the meanings we attribute to our experiences are highly contextualised, individual agency is inevitably shaped by the immediate environment, by our contact with and perception of space surrounding us. Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman’s thought provoking work Intimations of Postmodernity (1992), Ulf Hannerz argues that “a notion of agency should be combined, not with system, but with a flexible sense of habitat; a habitat in which agency operates and which it also produces, one where it finds its resources and goals as well as its limitations” (1996: 22). That is, our social and cultural relations are strongly influenced by our habitat(s). Different habitats of meaning will create different cultural processes and varied artistic reflections of them. When considered together with Mannheim’s concept of “fresh contact”,5 habitats of meaning explain 5

“Fresh contact plays an important part in the life of the individual when he is forced by events to leave his own social group and enter a new one – when, for example, an adolescent leaves home, or a peasant the countryside for the town, or when an emigrant changes his home, or a social climber his social status or class. It

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why different generations acknowledge and express their diasporic experience differently. In this context, we can trace a shift in the use of space in films from first generation examples to the third generation, inasmuch as diasporic subjects’ relation with their physical and social space change over time. Claustrophobia, as felt in the host country, and a concurrent nostalgic glorification of the homeland prevail in early films concerning first generation guest workers. They are fraught with “phobic spaces”, which are the cinematographic articulation of imprisonment, entrapment and exclusion. Hamid Naficy addresses the common use of “tight physical spaces within the diegesis, barriers within the mise-en-scéne and the shots that impede vision and access, and a lighting scheme that creates a mood of constriction and blocked vision” (2003: 213) in accented cinema. Contributing to this characteristic iconography of diasporic cinema, early films present protagonists confined in 40-m² dark rooms – 40 Squaremetres Germany (Baúer, 1986) – or in even smaller detention cells – Farewell to False Paradise (Baúer, 1989). Alternatively, agoraphobia is deployed to reflect the sense of desperation and loneliness that the individuals have to endure in the hostile hostland. In Baúer’s Farewell Stranger (1992), the whole island appears to be outside time: the overwhelming use of blue, nostalgic, pastel-tone colours, the shipwreck washed ashore, the ruins of an old church in the cemetery constantly reminding the audience of the imminent death: a clock without hour and minute hands seem to be the visual equivalents of Deniz’s perception of loss of time and space, since he is a nostalgic subject who is simultaneously exposed to past and present, now and then, homeland and hostland. As Burns observes, “Baúer often frames his characters within the horizontal and vertical lines of doorways and windows, so that they appear trapped within the depth of the frame or overpowered by the surrounding space” (2005: 135). Correspondingly, the immense landscape is used in order to create an agoraphobic apprehension by juxtaposing tiny, small, piteous refugees with the endless nature that is ready to swallow them. They are the undesired others of the host society, whose destiny is to suffer from discrimination and alienation; therefore, they are predictably located in narratives that configure phobic spaces. The more contact diasporic subjects have with the host society, the more integrated they become, the larger their habitats of meaning get. This is well known that in all these cases a quite visible and striking transformation of the consciousness of the individual in question takes place: a change, not merely in the content of experience, but in the individual’s mental and spiritual adjustment to it” (Mannheim 1952: 293).

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opens up possibilities, overcoming the limitations suggested by earlier examples. The change begins with the films of the transition period. The 1993 film Berlin in Berlin, directed by Sinan Çetin and co-written with Ümit Ünal, opens with random images of people on cosmopolitan Berlin streets, emphasising from the outset that it will be different from the former films by locating its protagonists within a social context, which gives an insight to their everyday life within the host society. “The use of diegetic sound and the delayed revelation of its sources gradually introduce the spectator into the hybrid space of Berlin in Berlin – a place where the day begins with competing voices and languages” (Göktürk 2001: 146). Berlin here poses not as a city of spatially mapped cultural divisions, but as “the contact zone”, which Mary L. Pratt explains as “the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality and intractable conflict” (1992: 6). Unlike Turna (Özay Fecht) in 40 Squaremetres Germany, whose only contact with Hamburg was the limited from from her window, second-generation Mürtüz (Cem Özer) and his brothers interact with the members of the host society on a daily basis; they are part of their neighbourhood. “They are free to view the rest of the habitat shared with other agents as a collection of opportunities and problems to be resolved or removed” (Bauman 1992: 192). That is why, even when harassed by skinheads one day, they do not articulate a wish to return to their putative homeland, because this is their habitat now, and they feel obliged to be part of the solution to social problems if required. Starting with these films, we also see a transformation of cityscapes. “The famous monuments and landmarks of the cities are either absent from the films or stripped of their traditional cultural capital, assuming the role of outdated icons in an impoverished urban fabric, a non-place” (Loshitzky 2006: 746). The existence of diasporic subjects turns urban landscapes into transnational social spaces. “In Lola und Bilidikid, Kutlu÷ Ataman foregrounds Berlin’s familiar topography as a narrative space populated by Turks drawn from the capital’s gay and transvestite scene” (Burns 2005: 141). In this respect, the film begins with an establishing shot, panning across Berlin skies till the camera stops at the slightly blurred image of the Berlin victory column – the gold-plated angel which also featured in Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire (1987). The iconic statue, with all its national and historical connotations, remains at the centre background of the frame when we first see Murat (Baki Davrak), who is the “angel” in the narrative, not only due to his naive character but also with his pure, innocent looking face. The introductory scenes,

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therefore, irreversibly relate this second-generation diasporic subject to his territory. A spatial relationship is constructed by Ataman’s well-calculated camera work. The filmmaker further deconstructs the fixed relationship between space and time by reorganising the location. “The scenes in the industrial wasteland where Lola (Gandi Mukli) is repeatedly harassed were filmed in Rummelsberg, an area notorious for neo-Nazi activity, through which none of the film’s characters would ever actually need to walk. Ataman dissects and re-sutures Berlin’s urban landscape” (Clark 2006: 564). Similarly, the homophobic and racist attitude of the young Germans in the film is put in a historical context, which underpins the connection between the treatment of contemporary diasporas and the Nazis’ treatment of Jews and homosexuals in their attempt to build a “master race”. Overall, these films suggest that Turks are no longer the silent prisoners of the host country; in contrast, they have increasingly become more visible, demanding recognition and fair treatment, and modifying their environment as the inhabitants of the cities in which they have dwelled for decades now.

Expanding Habitats Habitats expand further over time, allowing more contact between each other. Accordingly, new generations of diasporic subjects are located in the intersection of various habitats of meaning. That is why they are represented as stronger and more confident agents in Turkish-German films. A clichéd designation of the Turkish community as an enclave is rebutted by opening up opportunities for cross-cultural relationships rather than confining characters into circumscribed physical and cultural spaces. In this respect, interracial and intercultural couples play an important role in conveying the message. For instance, in his award winning film The Edge of Heaven (2007), which received the Best Screenplay Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Akn consciously refuses to reproduce occupational stereotypes such as greengrocer, custodian or taxi driver that stand for the entire Turkish community. Instead, the protagonist of the film, Nejat (Baki Davrak), is a professor of German literature at a German university, lecturing about Goethe, even though his father Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz) was a guest worker who had retired. This not only shows the transformation occurring over time in levels of integration to the host society and culture, but also draws attention to the heterogeneity within the Turkish community. What it more definitely tells us is that Akn is at pains to promote/represent the notion of Turks as (at least in some cases) well-integrated, middle-class members of German society, indicating the

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diasporic filmmakers’ deployment of a latent agenda rather than an overt politicisation. Bauman defines contemporary habitats as complex systems. They “appear as a space of chaos and chronic indeterminacy, a territory subjected to rival and contradictory meaning-bestowing claims and hence perpetually ambivalent” (1992: 193). Therefore, in current habitats “the identity of agent is neither given nor authoritatively confirmed. It has to be construed ... Self-constitution makes the identity of the agent” (1992: 193). This suggested idea of “identity in progress” ties in well with the “heteroglossia”6 and multifocality of new generation diasporic films, as they constantly challenge the fixed understanding of identity – ethnic, racial, cultural. In search of a new diasporic identity that reflects diasporic subjects’ multiple affiliations and their new habitats populated by numbers of agencies, Turkish-German filmmakers focus on heterogeneity, polysemy and the concomitant journeys of self-discovery. They purposefully deconstruct and reconstruct meanings. In her extraordinary road movie Tour Abroad (1999), Ayúe Polat chooses unconventional characters for her narrative: Zeki (Hilmi Sözer), a Turkish homosexual performer in his forties, and newly orphaned ùenay (Özlem Blume), a cute eleven-year-old girl, who is the daughter of Zeki’s ex-colleague. Zeki finds himself in a position whereby he needs to take ùenay to Çiçek (Özay Fecht), who is apparently her real mother but disappeared years ago. Despite Zeki’s reluctance to taken on this responsibility, they set off on a long journey in search of Çiçek, which actually turns out to be a journey of self-discovery and leads to a strong connection between the two. As they travel through various European cities such as Stuttgart, Paris and østanbul, “the history of migration is revisited through the lens of travelling performers” (Göktürk 2002: 254). The diasporic subjects are the explorers in these travelogues. Most remarkable thing in relation to the construction of the narrative space is the fact that Turkey is not portrayed in opposition to Germany or as a pristine homeland, it is, rather, given in continuity, stressing that it does not matter which country or city they are in; all the places they go through are just the background for the story and visually none is depicted as superior to the other. Therefore, the homeland is neither glorified nor derogated, but pictured from a maintained distance. Moreover, the second generation Turkish-Germans’ approach to the idea of “return” is made clear at the end of the film by the image of Zeki and ùenay in a taxi, leaving østanbul for Germany accompanied by cheerful music on the soundtrack, heralding an optimistic future, and the azan, 6

See Bakhtin 1997a and 1997b for a comprehensive discussion of the concept.

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implying the accomplished peace with their roots. As Svetlana Boym succinctly puts it, “the modern nostalgic realises that the goal of the odyssey is a rendezvous with oneself” (2001: 50). As their relation with their social space(s) change, diasporic subjects, especially the new generations, diverge from the idea/myth of return. That is why homecomings are not prescribed as an ultimate remedy, but as a short stop in a long journey of self-discovery in these films. Evidently, Turkish-Germans have redefined their relationships with their community and host society. Their self-constitution is influenced by “the other agencies (real or imagined) of the habitat … , in which the selfproclaimed allegiance to the selected agent is accomplished through freedom of choice” (Bauman 1992: 195). Therefore, the sense of belonging is reassessed and consequently multiplied. Accordingly, the new generations’ construction of homeland and hostland spaces varies. A significant realignment of location and thus of the diasporic subject marks the very minimalist documentary, My Father the Guest Worker (1995), of filmmaker Yüksel Yavuz, who is of Kurdish descent. In the film, Yavuz discovers his roots by visiting his father’s village in Turkey, and narrates the migration process that his father experienced, leaving his wife and children behind in order to work in Germany. The father’s personal account of migration is complemented by the director’s perception of the same process, either conveyed as voice-over or as the director’s commentary during the filming. Yavuz defies any narrative strategies that would characterise the image of a Turkish guest worker by creating a manifestly personalised account. The narrative, therefore, allows “dialogic interaction”7 instead, that allows communication between alternative discourses, since the director combines his father’s personal memory with his own post-memory, which appears to be the main tool for the second generation’s understanding of the migration process and their past/origin. Yavuz also juxtaposes the images of the Hamburg cityscape and the factory sites with idyllic Turkish village life and the daily working routine on the farms. The use of spatial references evokes Svetlana Boym’s classification of nostalgia as “restorative” and “reflective”: “Restorative nostalgia stresses nostos [return home] and attempts a transhistorical reconstruction of the lost home. Reflective nostalgia thrives in algia [longing], the longing itself, and delays the homecoming – wistfully, ironically, desperately” (Boym 2001: xviii). The former is regressive whereas the latter suggests progressive possibilities for multiple affiliations and belongings. “Reflective nostalgia explores ways inhabiting 7

See Bakthin 1997a for an instructive discussion of the concept.

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many places at once; rather than seek a return to a pristine homeland … Visually the desire to inhabit many places is captured as a sideways glance rather than as a backward look” (Moorti 2003: 359). In this respect, by positing Hamburg and his hometown, not in opposition to each other, but as a complementary pair in regard to his own identification, Yavuz seems to embrace his own position, straddling two disparate cultures simultaneously, instead of preferring one to the other. That is, he is not trapped between two cultures, but across them concurrently. The multiple senses of belonging as experienced by the director is emphasized by the introductory and concluding soundtrack, a musical rendering by the Turkish band Ezginin Günlü÷ü of the famous Greek poet Konstantinos Kavafis’s lyrics: “you cannot find a new country or a new sea, this city will follow you … ”. The film does not make it clear which of the two cities the filmmaker is really talking about, for the soundtrack connects various images of both. Therefore, either city can be the one mentioned in the song – he belongs to both at the same time. Unlike his father, who has strong sense of belonging to his hometown, Yavuz cannot escape either of the cities since they both contain the elements that make him who he is. He is not either Turkish/Kurdish or German, he is both Turkish/Kurdish and German. In terms of the deployment of cinematic spaces that dissociate dramatically from the use of space in “cinema of duty” films, Thomas Arslan is arguably the most important second-generation Turkish-German filmmaker. His characters inhabit numerous spaces by virtue of their increased mobility. His Berlin trilogy unquestionably endows TurkishGerman characters with an unaccustomed confidence and agency in their reclaimed habitats. They are the “modern metropolitan figures”, to adapt Göktürk’s definition (2000: 65). This most certainly demonstrates parallels to the geopolitical reconfiguration of the city after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. “In the new spatial and narrative configuration of the city, Kreuzberg [a district heavily populated by Turks, even known as the little østanbul] was no longer a desolate margin next to the Wall – a Gastarbeiter quarter, where the (Western) City literally met its borders. It has suddenly moved to the centre” (Soysal 2004: 67). Correspondingly, the new generation of diasporic Turks no longer exist merely in peripheral sociocultural spaces in the narratives. They have neither entirely assimilated to the host society nor simply isolated themselves, but instead created their own peculiar “third space”8 in Arslan’s films. “No longer trapped within hermetic domestic spaces or other sites of confinement, [this new 8

See Bhabha 1994 for a comprehensive discussion of the concept.

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generation of diasporas] tend to be situated in a multiplicity of urban and metropolitan environments where they can frequently demonstrate a new confident mobility” (Burns 2007: 371-72). In this context, movement of the characters comes to the fore, together with the spaces they occupy. The first film of Arslan’s so-called Berlin trilogy, Brothers and Sisters, follows the daily routines of three siblings in a Turkish-German family. Dealer is about a young Turkish-German man Can (Tamer Yi÷it), who is a drug dealer, torn between his family life and criminal activities. Can seems to be portraying the future of the eldest sibling Erol (Tamer Yi÷it) from Brothers and Sisters, not only because the character is played by the same actor but also due to the lifestyle assigned to him. The final film of the trilogy, A Fine Day, revolves around the experiences of an atypical young Turkish-German woman Deniz (Serpil Turhan), who works as a dubbing actress in an exploration of some existential questions regarding her life. Similarly, Deniz provides continuity with the first film as she possibly presents an extension of the youngest sibling Leyla (Serpil Turhan), although there is not an explicit narrative connection. The significance of the trilogy lies in its ability to define new social spaces for its second generation Turkish-German characters, through depicting an increased level of engagement with various habitats of meaning. Cautioning us against the shared celebration of the trilogy by scholars as an overt departure from the victim images of diasporic subjects common in earlier films,9 Jessica Gallagher (2006) argues that with the exception of A Fine Day, Arslan’s trilogy does not actually offer a real liberation from the constraints and conflicts that prevailed in the past. Mainly drawing on the writings of Michel de Certeau and Gilles Deleuze, she observes that “the protagonists in … Arslan’s trilogy continue to struggle with the same or similar problems as their predecessors in the Gastarbeiterkino, in terms of the spaces available to them (Gallagher 2006: 339). Or concerning Dealer, she claims that “the film continues to position Turkish-German characters on the margins of society, where they have limited freedom of movement and are under continual surveillance” (Gallagher 2006: 345). Even as regards A Fine Day, she suggests “Deniz is continually present in the urban exterior, and yet in many ways she appears to try to disengage herself” (Gallagher 2006: 350). If one insists on focusing on the eldest sibling, Erol, in Brothers and Sisters and his aimless wanderings through the city, mostly due to his lack of involvement in any productive activity, it is certainly possible to read the film as a story of an impossible integration and constantly felt exclusion. 9

See for instance Burns 2007 and Göktürk 2000.

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Thus, Gallagher suggests that “urban space can in fact be a potential and actual site of conflict, where the ethnic suburbs prove just as restrictive as, and in many ways represent merely an extension of, the claustrophobic and controlling domestic spaces of the past” (2006: 340). Yet the film proposes clear alternatives via younger brother Ahmed (Savaú Yurderi), who is a German citizen and a student, and the sister Leyla, who attends seamstress workshops and regularly inhabits Berlin streets with her friends. With its emphasis on heterogeneity and multiplicity, the film in fact defies any univocal reading of the narrative and characters. Moreover, especially when read in conjunction with the theory of habitats, the trilogy holds true revolutionary potentials. Bauman asserts that “the agencies active within the habitat cannot be assessed in terms of functionality or dysfunctionality … [with their established autonomy] they are still to seek their place and meaning” (1992: 192-93) in their habitat(s). Therefore, as modern metropolitan subjects, like any ordinary German inhabiting the same neighbourhood, these characters are engaged in their own selfconstitution, creating a meaning out of their habitats, sometimes assembling and sometimes disassembling various elements of their lives along the way. As autonomous individuals, they choose their lifestyle from a series of alternatives, instead of following an already determined route and/or life routine, as was the case for their predecessors. Early films did not admit the possibility of any way out other than experiencing a miserable plight. In this respect, in A Fine Day Deniz freely and leisurely wanders around Berlin with no given purpose other than satisfying her restless self/soul, reminding us of Bauman’s concept of “vagabond” as the sensation-seeker and collector of experiences (1998: 94).10 The notion of vagabond is also applicable to Brothers and Sisters’ Erol and Ahmed, who are frequently portrayed walking along the streets, and to Can in Dealer as he, together with his drug-dealing friends, is always out there, everywhere, interacting with the outer world, owning/marking his territory. A Fine Day opens with a bright, blue sky accompanied by the sound/noise of the city; traffic, cars, pedestrians, distant murmuring, anything one could associate with the streets. In effect, the city features not as the background but as one of the characters in the film, giving both the filmmaker and his characters their identity. As observed by Yosefa Loshitzky, “the city is the setting, 10

Bauman, focusing on the distinction between tourist and vagabond as two significant types of contemporary nomads, defines vagabond as the alter ego of tourist, “travelers refused the right to turn into tourists … flawed consumers” (1998: 77-102). They have to be there, in and around the city, because it is where they exist.

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backdrop and principal stage of drama for the majority of diasporic films. The prominence of the city in the cinemascape of Fortress Europe reflects the centrality of the city in the migratory process” (2010: 16). In line with this, almost immediately after being introduced to the viewer, Deniz goes out and melts into the city. The viewers are allowed enough time to take the characters and their environment, owing to the abundance of long shots. These characters are surrounded by the sounds, appearance and existence of the city; it is omnipresent, yet it does not feel like they are devoured by it; on the contrary, they are defined by means of it. Having graduated from the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin and as a prominent member of so-called Berlin School,11 it is not surprising that Arslan indulges himself in showing ordinary routines shaping daily lives in Berlin. His Berlin is “a human settlement in which strangers are likely to meet” (cited in Bauman 2000: 94), and a “play zone, in which the individual can appropriate a range of identities without serious consequences” (Fachinger 2007: 252). Yet his particular aesthetic strategy, based on neo-realism and foregrounding the cityscape, is audaciously political. His films are political because he reclaims previously inaccessible spaces by placing his characters right at the heart of the city. Referring to the first of the two strategies that Claude LéviStrauss suggested that human beings deploy to cope with the otherness of the other, namely “anthropoemic”,12 Bauman argues that “the upgraded, refined (modernised) forms of ‘emic’ strategy are spatial separation, urban ghettos, selective access to spaces and selective barring from using them” (2000: 101). Challenging any possible anthropoemic strategies, Arslan allows his characters with a much desired freedom to access any part of their habitats and beyond. Alternatively, he transforms so-called “empty spaces”13 and endows them with meaning by providing visibility for them. Inasmuch as the city pervades and is heard even in the indoor spaces, Deniz and the city in A Fine Day function as though they are an extension of each other; they are organically connected. Deniz’s reflection is on the walls, trains, shop windows and so on, suggesting they have become one. The city not only embraces Deniz when she is out there, but also it 11

See Baute et al. 2010 for an instructive discussion about Berlin School. The other is “anthropophagic”, working through disalienation of alien substances, the suspension and annihilation of otherness. 13 “[Empty spaces] are in places to which no meaning is ascribed. They do not have to be physically cut off by fences or barriers. They are not prohibited places, but empty spaces, inaccessible because of their invisibility” (Kociatkiewicz and Kostera 1999: 43). Slums, shanty towns, run-down industrial areas etc. can be given as examples of empty spaces. 12

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continues molding her even in her living room. The same is also discernible in Brothers and Sisters and Dealer, where the sound of the city ruthlessly accompanies the characters’ actions, as if the soul/identity of Berlin refuses to be disengaged from its inhabitants. The characters’ constant mobility at the same time allows the viewer to address Berlin as a city of subcultures, for they move around graffiti, torn posters, rappers, etc. In a similar vein, movement, mobility and thus means of transport prove significant in the film, not, however, as the vehicles that connect diasporic subjects to their much-longed for homelands, but as the means that enable them to travel within the city. Berlin here is the locus of constant transit. It is hereby reconstructed as a cosmopolitan metropolis, laden with subjects who are themselves are in transit and mobile. Together with the immersive presence of the city, vehicles symbolise the characters’ close connection with their habitat, which in this case is the multicultural city of Berlin. A similar connection between the protagonists and their habitats is established at the end of Dealer. When Can completes his selfnarration from his prison cell through a non-diegetic commentary, the camera lingers at spaces he once inhabited; the park, the doorway, the abandoned industrial site, the kitchen, and the crowded residential blocks. Rob Burns, stressing “the absence of any signs of human life in these images” interprets this ending as a reflection of Can’s confinement; “his freedom of action was essentially no less restricted in his urban environment than it is now in this real prison” (2007: 373). Yet, an alternative reading is possible. Even if no longer physically present, Can’s voice over suggests the connection with and the conditions of his existence; these spaces were and still are his habitat; he is, first and foremost, a Berliner, as are Deniz, Leyla and Ahmed.

Transformed Habitats of Meaning As regards the perception and representation of space and belonging, one wonders if there are any differences between the second and third generation Turkish-German filmmakers. How is the relationship between diasporic subjects and their habitats constructed when the hometown becomes a playground? In My Sorrowful Village (Görgülü, 2005) the filmmaker, as the narrator, tells his own story regarding his hometown, Burunören, in lyrical style, which contrasts with the villagers’ ordinary, work-a-day language: ‘for me Burunören was like a big playground, but Frankfurt is my home’. This alone explicates Kemal Görgülü’s primary habitat of meaning and his resultant romanticised relationship with the

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country of origin and its culture. The film begins with amateur, very low quality footage of the village and villagers dating back to 1984, accompanied by the traditional Turkish musical instrument, the saz. It appears to be the filmmaker’s own amateur recordings created when he was a child visiting his village during regular summer holidays. It strongly underlines the filmmaker’s mediated perception of his hometown and home culture, indicating the role of prosthetic memory; he sees through lenses. Combining pastoral images depicting the village life with the images of the working machines and cranes, the film is far from glorifying the homeland; rather it can readily be construed as an exoticising narrative. Even if it is not Görgülü’s intended purpose, nevertheless, especially in the scenes with female villagers, who sing folk songs while collectively rolling dough for traditional baking, we can see the filmmaker as a participant anthropologist investigating a native tribe, studying his subject. The film does not function as an autoethnographic text, but rather as a pursuit of self-satisfaction via a sincere attempt to discover one’s estranged roots. The new generation diasporic subjects’ estrangement from their country of origin and their involvement in socio-cultural spaces of the host society is the main theme of Hakan Savaú Mican’s short film Foreign (2007), which can be read as the last part of a trilogy about mother-son relations. The filmmaker, who was born in Berlin in 1978 as the son of a guest worker family from the Black Sea region of Turkey, describes his identity as a “mutant” formation that is shaped by a feeling of not belonging to anywhere since he had to live in the two countries simultaneously throughout his childhood and adolescence. In addition, he argues that he and his parents represent two opposite poles on the basis of cultural affiliations and he believes this is reflected in his films, in which all characters feel the need to belong somewhere (Yücel 2008: 68). In Foreign, he focuses on the construction of the third space which these new generations of diaspora inhabit, by particularly problematising generational differences between a completely integrated, but in fact alienated, young Turkish-German man, Adem (øsmail ùahin) and his mother, Meryem (Sema Poyraz). The film begins with a static camera showing a white room with an open window, then a young man enters the frame and leaves a suitcase in the middle of the room; the act is accompanied by a short and sharp rhythm performed with a tabor, which functions as an indication of an oriental intruder who invades his isolated life in his well-defined habitat. This intruder is his mother on her regular visit from Turkey. After the introduction, the film is divided into six little episodes, indicating, to a certain extent, the filmmaker’s fragmented understanding of his individual

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history and cultural roots. After being trapped in between a disowned past and more familiar future, at the climax, Adem is transformed into a subject that understands and embraces both. Referring to Bhabha (1994), inasmuch as the hybrid identity of these new generation diasporas is positioned in the interstitial third space, the binary contradictions will continue to be transgressed and subverted. In their third space these filmmakers negotiate for new positions and identities that are multidimensional and multi-referential. The peculiar nature of the third space disrupts fixed meanings and allows diasporic agents to explore their subjectivities in their various habitats. To conclude briefly, Turkish diasporic cinema registers a shift in the use of space over time, which can be explained in correlation with Turkish diasporic community’s changing relationship with its habitat. In early examples, phobic spaces constitute a common iconography, whereas more recent examples represent more complex and diverse habitats of meaning, and emphasise the more positive aspects of transnational mobility; consequently, tropes of entrapment and incarceration have been renounced, and in their place, ever more mobile, confident and socially and politically conscious diasporic subjects have come to the fore.

References Bakhtin, M. (1997a), “The Dialogic Imagination” in P. Morris (ed) The Bakhtin Reader, Oxford: Arnold Publication. —. (1997b), “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics” in P. Morris (ed) The Bakhtin Reader, Oxford: Arnold Publication. Bauman, Z. (1992), Intimations of Postmodernity, London; New York: Routledge. —. (1998), Globalisation: The Human Consequences, Cambridge: Polity Press. —. (2000), Liquid Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Baute, M., knrer, E., Pantenburg, V., Pethke, S. and Rothhler, S. (2010), “The Berlin School – A Collage”, Senses of Cinema, 55, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2010/feature-articles/the-berlinschool-%E2%80%93-a-collage-2/. Accessed 10 August 2010. Berghahn, D. (2006), “No Place Like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin”, New Cinemas, 4 (3), pp. 141-158. —. (2010), “Coming of Age in the Hood: The Diasporic Youth Film and Questions of Genre” in D. Berghahn and C. Sternberg (eds), European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe, London; New York: Wallflower Press.

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Bhabha, H. K. (1994), The Location of Culture, London and New York: Routledge. Boym, S. (2001), The Future of Nostalgia, New York: Basic Books. Brah, A. (1996), Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities, London; USA; Canada: Routledge. Burns, R. (2005), “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema” in David Clarke (ed), German Cinema: Since Unification, London; New York: Continuum. —. (2007), “The Politics of Cultural Representation: Turkish-German Encounters”, German Politics, 16 (3), pp. 358-378. —. (2009), “On the Streets and On the Road: Identity in Transit in Turkish-German Travelogues on Screen”, New Cinemas, 7(1), pp. 1126. Clark, C. (2006), “Transculturation, Transe Sexuality and Turkish Germany: Kutlug Ataman’s Lola und Bilidikid”, German Life and Letters, 59 (4), pp. 554-572. Fachinger, P. (2007), “A New Kind of Creative Energy: Yade Kara’s Selam Berlin and Fatih Akin’s Kurz und Schmerzlos and Gegen die Wand”, German Life and Letters, 60 (2), pp. 243-260. Gallagher, J. (2006), “The Limitation of Urban Space in Thomas Arslan’s Berlin Trilogy”, Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 42 (3), pp. 337-352. Ganser, A., Pühringer, J. and Rheindorf, M. (2006), “Bakhtin’s Chronotope on the Road: Space, Time and Place in Road Movies Since the 1970s”, Facta Universitatis, 4 (1), pp. 1-17. Genç, S. (2004), “Aci Vatandan Kisa ve Acisiz’a”, Yeni Film, 4. pp. 5358. Göktürk, D. (2000), “Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema” in Myrto Konstantarakos (ed), Spaces in European Cinema, Exeter: Intellect Books. —. (2001), “Turkish Delight-German Fright: Migrant Identities in Transtanional Cinemas” in D. Derman, K. Ross and N. Dakovic (eds), Mediated Identites, Istanbul, Bilgi University Press. —. (2002), “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema”, in T. Bergfelder, E. Carter and D. Göktürk (eds), The German Cinema Book, London: BFI Publishing. Hannerz, U. (1996), Transnational Connections, London; New York: Routledge. Hirsch, M. (2008), “The Generation of Postmemory”, Poetics Today, 29 (1), pp. 103-126.

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Kociatkiewicz, J. and Kostera, M. (1999), “The Anthropology of Empty Spaces”, Qualitative Sociology, 22 (1), pp. 37-50. Landsberg, A. (2003), “Prosthetic Memory: The Ethics and Politics of Memory in an Age of Mass Culture” in P. Grainge (ed), Memory and Popular Film, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Loshitzky, Y. (2006), “Introduction”, Third Text, 20 (6), pp. 629-634. —. (2010), Screening Strangers, Bloomington; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Mani, V. (2007), Cosmopolitical Claims, University of Iowa Press: Iowa City. Mannheim, K. (1952), Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, Paul Kesckemeti (ed), London: Routledge&Kegan Paul Ltd. Mennel, B. (2002), “Bruce Lee in Kreuzberg and Scarface in Altona: Transnational Auterism and Ghettocentrism in Thomas Arslan’s Brothers and Sisters and Fatih Akn’s Short Sharp Shock”, New German Critique, 87, Special Issue on Postwall Cinema, pp. 133-156. Moorti, S. (2003), “Desperately Seeking an Identity: Diasporic Cinema and the Articulation of Transnational Kinship”, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(3), pp. 355-376. Naficy, H. (2003), “Phobic Spaces and Liminal Panics: Independent Transnational Film Genre” in E. Shohat and R. Stam (eds), Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality and Transnational Media, New Burnswick; New Jersey; London: Rutgers University Press, pp. 203226. Pratt, M. L. (1992), Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, London; New York: Routledge. Radhakrishnan, R. (2003), “Ethnicity in An Age of Diaspora” in J. Braziel and A. Mannur (eds), Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader, Oxford; Melbourne; Berlin: Blackwell Publishing. Soysal, L. (2004), “Rap, Hiphop, Kreuzberg: Scripts of/for Migrant Youth Culture in the World City Berlin”, New German Critique, 92, pp. 6281.

Films Cited 40 Quadrameter Deutschland (40 Squaremetres Germany). 1986. Dir. Tevfik Baúer. Script: Tevfik Baúer. Perf. Özay Fecht, Yaman Okay. Studio Hamburg Filmproduktion and Tevfik Baúer Filmproduktion. Abshied vom falschen Paradies (Farewell to False Paradise). 1989. Dir. Tevfik Baúer. Script: Tevfik Baúer, Sibylle Shönemann, Salina Scheinhardt, Cornelius Bischoff. Perf. Zuhal Olcay, Brigitte Janner,

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Ruth Ólafsdóttir. Studio Hamburg Filmproduktion, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and Ottokar Runze Filmproduktion. Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven). 2007. Dir. Fatih Akn. Script: Fatih Akn. Perf. Nurgül Yeúilçay, Baki Davrak, Patrycia Ziolkowska. Corazón International. Auslandstournee (Tour Abroad). 1999. Dir. Ayúe Polat. Script: Ayúe Polat, Basri Polat. Perf. Hilmi Sözer, Özlem Blume, Özay Fecht. Mira Filmproduktion Bremen GmbH and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF). Benim Dertli Köyüm (My Sorrowful Village). 2005. Dir. Kemal Görgülü. dostFilm and ESAV. Berlin in Berlin. 1993. Dir. Sinan Çetin. Script: Sinan Çetin, Ümit Ünal. Perf. Hülya Avúar, Armin Block, Cem Özer. Plato Film Production. Dealer. 1998. Dir. Thomas Arslan. Script: Thomas Arslan. Perf. Tamer Yi÷it, ødil Üner. Trans-Film GmbH (Berlin) and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF). Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire). 1987. Dir. Wim Wenders. Script: Wim Wenders, Peter Handke, Richard Reitinger. Perf. Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander. Road Movies Filmproduktion, Argos Films and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). Der schöne Tag (A Fine Day). 2000. Dir. Thomas Arslan. Script: Thomas Arslan. Perf. Serpil Turhan, Bilge Bingül. Filmboard BerlinBrandenburg (FBB), Pickpocket Productions, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and Zero Fiction Film GmbH. Fremd (Foreign). 2007. Dir. Hakan Savas Mican. Script: Hakan Savas Mican. Perf. Sema Poyraz, Roja Mert, Murat Karabey Ylmaz. Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin GmbH. Geschwister (Brothers and Sisters). 1996. Dir. Thomas Arslan. Script: Thomas Arslan. Perf. Savaú Yurderi, Tamer Yi÷it, Serpil Turhan. Trans-Film GmbH (Berlin) and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF). Lebewohl, Fremde (Farewell Stranger). 1991. Dir. Tevfik Baúer. Script: Tevfik Baúer Perf. Müúfik Kenter, Grazyna Szapolowska. Haro Senft Film Produktion, Lichtblick Film und Fernsehproduktion, Pro-ject Filmproduktion, Tevfik Baúer Film Produktion and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF). Lola und Bilidikid. 1998. Dir. Kutlu÷ Ataman. Script: Kutlu÷ Ataman. Perf. Gandi Mukli, Baki Davrak, Erdal Yldz. Boje Buck Produktion, Zero Fiction Film GmbH (Berlin) and Westdeutcher Rundfunk (Köln). Mein Vater, der Gastarbeiter (My Father the Guest Worker). 1995. Dir. Yüksel Yavuz. Script: Britta Ohm, Yüksel Yavuz. Zero Fiction Film GmbH (Berlin).

FROM TWO WORLDS TO A THIRD SPACE: STEREOTYPY AND HYBRIDITY IN TURKISH-GERMAN CINEMA1 ROB BURNS

The making of a distinct Turkish-German cinema over the last three decades is an instance of what, more generally, has variously been termed minority cinema, exilic cinema, transnational cinema, accented cinema, hyphenated cinema or diasporic cinema; that is to say, a cinema that thematises ‘the consequences of migration, displacement, diaspora and exile from the perspective of private lives and personal relationships and through the key categories of gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and race’ (Hake 217). This Turkish–German cinema has its roots in two areas of cultural practice. Firstly, what gradually took on the character of a ‘substate cinema’ emerged initially as part of a ‘politically critical national cinema’. This form of cinema was subsumed under a broader thematic category within the New German Cinema of the 1970s, namely films which addressed themselves to the plight of so-called ‘guest-workers’ (Gastarbeiter).2 This initial focus on the inhuman living and working conditions of foreign labourers is typified by Ganz unten (Lowest of the Low), the fly-on-the-wall documentary that was released in 1986 as a companion to Günter Wallraff’s record-breaking literary reportage of the same title. Disguising himself as a Turkish worker, Wallraff assumed the identity of a real immigrant in order to penetrate Germany’s illegal labour market. Equipped with a hidden video camera and a microphone, he then 1

This is a revised version of an article originally published in Debatte, vol. 15 (2007). 2 In addition to films cited below, these include: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Katzelmacher (1969) and Angst essen Seele auf (Fear Eats The Soul, 1974), Christian Ziewer, Aus der Ferne sehe ich dieses Land (From Afar I See This Land, 1977), Werner Schroeter, Palermo oder Wolfsburg (Palermo or Wolfsburg,1980), Jan Schütte, Drachenfutter (Dragon Food, 1987) and Dorris Dörrie, Happy Birthday,Türke (Happy Birthday, Turk, 1991).

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for some two years recorded his experiences in a variety of dangerous, insanitary and badly paid jobs. Lowest of the Low is but one of many nonfiction films made in the 1970s and 1980s that issue from a ‘social worker’ mentality with regard to ‘the problem of foreigners’ in the Federal Republic. Unlike these documentaries, however, Wallraff’s became the centre of fierce controversy. For despite the everyday manifestations of fascistic behaviour he unmasked, Wallraff was not spared criticism himself from those who felt that Lowest of the Low presented a patronizing and stereotyped portrait of the Turk as uneducated, unskilled, naïve and pitiful (Özakin 6-9). Arlene Akiko Teraoka goes even further and argues that Lowest of the Low ‘is not really about Turks at all’; rather, Wallraff ‘is taking their experience as paradigmatic for the experience of oppression in general’ (Teroaka 117, 119). The same point was made about an earlier film, Shirin’s Wedding (Shirins Hochzeit, 1975), written and directed by the German filmmaker Helma Sanders-Brahms, which was criticized for collapsing the specifically Turkish dimension of the protagonist’s story into a generalized narrative about women’s oppression under patriarchy (Reinecke 15; Brauerhoch). Secondly, and more generally, the development of Turkish-German cinema must also be seen against the background of various initiatives to promote migrant culture in Germany, notably the Polynational Literature and Art Association and the editorial collective Südwind. These two organisations were founded in 1980 in order to co-ordinate the creative efforts of migrant groups in Germany and facilitate the publication of what at that time was expressly and affirmatively designated by Südwind as ‘guestworker literature’. Whether tending towards the latent miserabilism of confessional and documentary writing or, as was later the case, given a more activist inflection as an instrument of ‘cultural resistance’, this was to be a ‘literature of the affected’, in which writing was conceived as both a therapeutic process of self-discovery and an ideological one of ‘building bridges with words’ (Biondi and Schami 146). Written in German in order to be accessible to all nationalities, it was to be a polynational literature which aimed to foster solidarity among migrant workers as well as among the politically and economically oppressed in Germany generally. Moreover, such writing laid claim to counter-cultural status, hence the insistence on the official term for migrant labour, Gastarbeiter – just as ‘many Asian, African and Caribbean people in Britain chose to adopt the term “Black” as an umbrella political category’ (Malik 204). By recuperating social experiences excluded from the mainstream and prioritizing the authenticity of personal experience, minority literature was seen as mounting an ideological challenge to the dominant culture. In view

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of the lack of authenticity betrayed by the New German Cinema’s representations of alterity, such an aesthetic provided a creative stimulus to migrant filmmakers in Germany, as well as helping to shape a climate in which films addressing problems of ethnic difference could be expected to attract production subsidies from the public service broadcasting corporations and the federal and regional funding authorities.

A Cinema of the Affected and a Cinema of Métissage In the cinema that emerged in the 1980s as the correlate of the ‘literature of the affected’ the perspective brought to bear on the alien culture was one in which the focus was unremittingly on alterity as a seemingly insoluble problem, on conflict of either an intercultural or intracultural variety. Georg Seeßlen has assigned the generic label of ‘Kino der Métissage’ to films foregrounding such intracultural tensions, in which the family frequently appears as the site where battle is waged between rural traditionalism and urban cosmopolitanism, between the old and the new culture, between the generations and the sexes. Moreover, as in the German-language diasporic literature published in this period the ‘cinema of the affected’ frequently drew its themes, motifs and images from what Jim Jordan has characterized as the ‘two worlds paradigm’: [Underlying these images] is a model of two fixed entities, with the migrant subject either suspended in motion or trapped between them. The nature of these two entities depends on the context being described or explored …: they can be the land of origin and the land of migration; or, in an essentialist sense, the cultures of these two lands; or they can be the migrant and ‘host’ communities within the country of migration, or the cultures emerging from these communities. There is always some form of fundamental incompatibility between these two worlds: the migrant may be called on to bridge this incompatibility, or to mediate, or to tread warily along the fault-line between these two bodies (Jordan 490).

Both in its thematic emphases and its recurrent imagery centred on the trope of incarceration, the work of Tevfik Baúer is wholly representative of this ‘cinema of the affected’. The Turkish-born director, who moved to Germany in the early 1980s, released his first feature film, 40 m² Deutschland (40 Square Metres of Germany) in 1986, the same year as Lowest of the Low, but although one of the two principal figures in Baúer’s film is a Turkish guest-worker, we are shown nothing of his life outside the domestic sphere. To have done so, Baúer claimed, would only have yielded clichés (Ulrich 14). Similarly, although the film, like Shirin’s

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Wedding, portrays a Turkish woman in circumstances of extreme oppression, the specifically cultural dimension of that oppression is precisely what is foregrounded in the movie’s portrait of a migrant stranded between two worlds. The ‘40 square metres’ in question define the film’s sole location, a three-room flat in a Hamburg tenement and the new home of Turna, who has been brought over from rural Anatolia to live with her husband, Dursun. It is Turna’s task to transform this space into a little enclave of Turkish culture which will offer Dursun refuge after his work at the factory and safeguard his wife from the moral depravity he sees pervading German society. In reality, however, as endless days pass filled only with cleaning, washing and cooking, it proves to be a domain of domestic drudgery in which, since Dursun keeps the flat door permanently locked, Turna is quite literally imprisoned. Not the least disturbing aspect of Turna’s plight is her lack of resistance. So conditioned is she to her husband’s patriarchal authoritarianism that she cannot, or dare not, utter more than the mildest of protestations. In her growing frustration Turna cuts off her long black plaits, an act of transformation she repeats on her doll after she becomes pregnant. If this is to be seen as a gesture of cultural protest by embracing a Western hairstyle, then it quickly gives way to feelings of shame that she tries to conceal under a headscarf. Similarly, the effect of cutting the doll’s hair is to make it appear male, an act not so much of self-assertion as compliance with her husband’s demands for a son and heir. Ironically, the only real opportunity Turna is offered of experiencing the outside world, she forfeits not by denying but by proudly affirming her cultural identity. Dursun finally gives in to Turna’s entreaties and agrees to take her to the fair, though only in order that she might see for herself how immorally the Germans entertain themselves. On the morning of the promised outing she wakes up early and prepares herself for the big occasion, fastidiously applying her most brilliant make-up and donning a traditional outfit resplendent in billowing shawls and multi-coloured scarves. However, such a dazzling assertion of her Turkish femininity merely strengthens Dursun’s resolve to keep Turna under lock and key. Sensing that his wife’s overt ‘Otherness’ will attract attention, and afraid that she in turn will be contaminated by any contact with German customs and mores, Dursun reneges on his promise and goes out alone. Apart from as a household drudge and sexual slave, Turna’s only other value to Dursun lies in her capacity to bear him a male offspring. Significantly, the only occasions on which Dursun appears to demonstrate concern for his wife relate to his increasing frustration at her failure to conceive. When she falls ill, principally as a consequence of her living

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conditions, Dursun fetches not a doctor but the hodja, a Muslim holy man, who proceeds to carry out a fertility rite on Turna unperturbed by her blank incomprehension at his ministrations. The meaning of the Qur’an text the hodja inscribes on Turna’s belly is inaccessible to her because she cannot read or write. Her powers of articulation decline progressively, in tandem with her physical and mental deterioration, to the point where eventually language breaks down totally and she is reduced to anguished screams or neurotic whimpering. Deprived of social intercourse and treated like a caged animal, a woman denied a voice has become a woman without a language. Incapable of resisting her captor but lacking any external liberator, Turna can finally only secure her release when Dursun suffers a fatal epilectic attack; and yet, even in death, he maintains the role of his wife’s jailor by blocking the doorway. Hence, notwithstanding the fact of Turna’s ultimate liberation from her domestic bondage, Baúer’s film remains essentially open-ended. That the camera declines to follow Turna as she finally escapes from the Stygian gloom of her internment and staggers into the celestial sunlight of the street would seem to suggest that a whole set of new problems await her in the foreign environment to which she has only now gained access. For, as Baúer has argued, Turna has been incarcerated twice over: first, in her role as a Turkish woman, and secondly, as an immigrant in an alien world (Ulrich 14). The trope of imprisonment is pursued in Baúer’s second movie, Abschied vom falschen Paradies (Farewell to a False Paradise, 1989). In the so-called ‘guestworker literature’ of the 1970s and early 1980s, the notion of paradise was invariably used ironically to signify the flagrant discrepancy between the immigrants’ initial projections of a promised land of opportunity and affluence and their actual hellish reality of discrimination and exploitation. Farewell to a False Paradise, Baúer’s adaptation of a story by the Turkish writer Saliha Scheinhardt, reverses this trajectory: moving from Turkey to Germany in her teens, Elif, the film’s protagonist, is sentenced in 1984 to six years in a German jail for the killing of her violent husband. Elif enters what she at first perceives as a netherworld of punishment and humiliation, only to discover an elysian sanctuary offering liberation and a new self-awareness. Mostly shot from Elif’s point of view, the film’s imagery repeatedly underscores the ethereal connotations contained in its title. When she falls ill during her period of remand, Elif’s sense of isolation is diminished by her joyous discovery of a package dangling on a rope outside her window. Containing an orange and a message wishing her a speedy recovery, this simple gift marks Elif’s entry into the clandestine service network the inmates have developed to counter the rigours of prison life. If here the serpentine rope, the forbidden fruit

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(the orange) and the voice from on high (of the woman in the cell above) evoke the earthly paradise of the Garden of Eden, then this prefigures Elif’s subsequent loss of innocence when she is moved to the penitentiary proper. Similarly, her ascent of the prison stairs bathed in a celestial neon light, following directly on from a disembodied male voice pronouncing judgment on her, all suggests the stairway to heaven (and, of course, the bridge between two worlds). Accordingly, Elif comes to experience this institution as an essentially harmonious environment conducive to female bonding. While still on remand, she is invited by Christine, one of the long-term inmates, to come up and join them in the prison. That Elif’s new friend has also killed her husband (albeit, in this instance, to end his suffering not hers) establishes a bond between the two women. Christine gives an ideological seal to this bond with her comment that in similar circumstances men are typically convicted of manslaughter and not, as in their case, murder. In contrast to the other two Turkish women in the prison, who remain steadfastly aloof, Elif quickly realizes that the gestures of female solidarity she receives demand reciprocity on her part. Hence she readily goes along with her case-worker’s offer to learn Turkish if Elif will learn German. Indeed, in the case of Gabriella, with whom Elif later shares a cell, the reciprocity borders on the erotic as is evident from a series of short scenes showing the two women talking intimately, eating, smoking and showering together. Correlatively, the strength of this female bonding is underscored by the wholly negative role played in the film by men. Thus prison offers Elif a hitherto unknown freedom to explore new possibilities of female identity and, by integrating herself into this sisterly community, she gradually frees herself from what she now perceives as the patriarchal constrictions of Muslim culture. The most dramatic index of Elif’s transformation is her new attitude to clothes, which, initiated by her decision to discard the traditional headscarf, is ultimately symptomatic of her changing sexual identity. Just as telling is her complete lack of selfconsciousness as she takes a communal shower and sensuously washes her cell-mate’s back, since this contrasts markedly with the shame and humiliation she felt on arrival at having to expose her body in the course of a routine strip-search. Seen from Elif’s point of view, life in this institution is more than a little idyllic. Judged by empirical standards, too, this jail – where cells are havens of domesticity, where the warders are not particularly authoritarian and where, amongst the inmates, there is no hierarchy, no brutality and, crucially in this context, virtually no racism – does, it is true, represent something of a utopia. The visionary dimension is, however, undercut by

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the film’s conclusion: with her sentence reduced for good behaviour and her ties to her family and her homeland now severed, Elif is to be sent back to Turkey where she faces another trial for the same crime, a fate she unsuccessfully seeks to avoid by attempting suicide. Furthermore, that Elif’s temporary sanctuary itself represents only a ‘false paradise’ is indicated in the opening credits sequence which, by showing the demolition of the prison, long since officially closed down, symbolizes the necessity for Elif’s emancipation to extend beyond the (for her) protective walls of this jail. Born in Turkey in 1951, Baúer studied the visual arts in Hamburg in the 1980s before acquiring German citizenship in 1989. By then he had already gained national recognition as a director when 40 Square Metres of Germany was nominated for the Federal Film Prize in 1987.3 It also received a positive reception from that strand of feminist criticism in Germany that had likewise acclaimed the work of Turkish writers like Saliha Scheinhardt for its portrayal of subjugated womanhood. On the other hand, although Baúer has fiercely defended his film against the charge of stoking anti-Islamic sentiment (Ulrich 14), others have observed that such representations of female alterity grounded in schematic binary models of aggressive (male) perpetrator and passive (female) victim may only serve to reinforce existing patterns of prejudice in the Western public sphere (Suhr 95; Weigel 223-4). For another strand of feminist criticism, however, the problem goes deeper than this dilemma and centres on the methodological inadequacy of approaches to Turkish femininity based on ‘a double othering’, whereby ‘the otherness of Turkish experience is “added” to that of female gender’ (Adelson 307). As Deniz Göktürk has argued, such ‘additive’ models of female identity, in which Turkish women in Germany ‘are assumed to find a voice and space supposedly denied them in their oppressive culture of origin’, often serve ‘to confirm hypocritical narratives of rescue, liberation and Westernisation’ (Göktürk 2002, 251). Such a narrative is epitomised for Göktürk by Hark Bohm’s Yasemin (1988), which tells the story of a Turkish Juliet (Yasemin) imperilled by her romance with a German Romeo (Jan). Set in Hamburg, the film has proved enduringly popular, not least in the cinema programmes organised abroad by the Goethe Institute, the cultural arm of the German Foreign 3

Özay Fecht, who played Turna, and Claus Bantzer, who composed the musical score, both received awards. Farewell to a False Paradise was likewise nominated for the Federal Film Prize, while Baúer’s third feature film, Lebewohl, Fremde (Farewell, Stranger, 1991), served as Germany’s official entry to the Cannes Film Festival in 1991.

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Office, where the movie has habitually been praised for its sensitive portrayal of the clash between Turkish tradition and Western modernity. While ultimately the film does seem to suggest that this cultural collision generates irreconcilable differences, the opening sequences nevertheless present the picture of a Turkish family in Germany trying to maintain an equilibrium between the conflicting demands of two cultures. Altogether more questionable, however, is the film’s narrative logic that requires the conversion of Yasemin’s genial, doting father into a cruel, tyrannical patriarch, as a consequence of which Yasemin’s ‘playful engagements’ with the two worlds ‘are declared impossible’ and, instead, she is simply compelled to choose between them (Goktürk 2000, 66). For Göktürk, rather than fostering transcultural understanding as the film’s promoters claimed, Yasemin essentially ‘reconfirms long-held stereotypes according to which German society is considered enlightened and civilised, while the Turkish patriarchy is bound to archaic rituals and traditional beliefs’ (Göktürk 2002, 251). Nor are such representations merely a passing trend, as indicated recently by Feo Aladag’s film In der Fremde (When We Leave, 2009), a harrowing melodrama which reinforces all the stereotypes about forced marriages and honour killings that were evoked by Necla Kelek’s controversial portrait of Turkish girls in her (non-fictional) book Die fremde Braut (The Foreign Bride, 2005). The ‘cinema of the affected’, as represented by Baúer’s work, can be seen as continuing the tradition of the ‘guest-worker cinema’ (Gastarbeiterkino) of the New German Cinema. Moreover, for critics like Göktürk, it betrays a ‘social-worker approach’ to ethnic relations in so far as it ‘illustrates the cinematic imprisonment of immigrants within the parameters of well-meaning multiculturalism feeding on binary oppositions and integrationist desires’ (Göktürk: 2000, 68).4 As such it epitomizes a type of cinema that Cameron Bailey has defined in the following terms: ‘Social issue in content, documentary-realist in style, firmly responsible in intention – it positions its subjects in direct relations to social crisis, and attempts to articulate “problems” and “solutions to problems” within a framework of centre and margin’ (qtd in Malik 203-4). In this respect Göktürk sees the films of the indigenous German director Hark Bohm and the migrant filmmaker Tevfik Baúer as issuing from the same ideological stable: ‘Both define the Turkish woman as a victim of relationships. The films of both feed from the same arsenal of popular

4 For a similar line of criticism which reads these films from the perspective of a social scientist see Pratt Ewing (2006).

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assumptions, images and stories and finally confirm the superiority of German culture’ (Göktürk: 2002, 251).

The Shift from Stereotypes to Hybridity The 1990s saw the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers whose work is above all notable for the sustained attempt to dismantle rather than recycle cultural stereotypes and to open up a ‘third space’ between the celebration and the denial of otherness (Bhabha 28-39; 21619).5 The film Berlin in Berlin (1993) by the Turkish director Sinan Çetin marks a significant step in this shift away from the ‘cinema of the affected’. Thomas, an amateur photographer and engineer on a building site, becomes infatuated with Dilber, the wife of a Turkish colleague, whom he then accidentally kills. Some time later, after trying to reestablish contact with the woman in order to explain his innocence, he is pursued by her brothers-in-law and in his frantic efforts to escape them he breaks into an apartment, only to realise that his place of refuge is none other than the dead man’s family home. When his presence is eventually discovered, he is saved from the vengeance-seeking brothers by the insistence of their father and grandmother that this German is there at Allah’s behest and that so long as he remains under their roof no harm shall befall him. Paradoxically, the grandmother’s invocation of this ancient Turkish tradition of hospitality both saves Thomas’s life and renders him a prisoner, for this place of sanctuary extends only as far as the door to the apartment, beyond which Mürtüz, the eldest son, will be free to restore the family honour by avenging his brother’s death. Gradually there develops a form of uneasy co-existence predicated on a grudging mutual respect, with Thomas being drawn into an increasingly willing participation in the household’s customs and rituals, and eventually, following one final climactic confrontation, Thomas is allowed to leave the apartment accompanied by Dilber. Released in Germany in 1993, shortly before the unqualified right to political asylum enshrined in the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) was drastically and contentiously curtailed,6 Çetin’s film willy-nilly tapped into one of the 5

‘The non-synchronous temporality of global and national cultures opens up a cultural space – a third space – where the negotiation of incommensurable differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences’ (Bhabha 218). 6 In 1993 Article 16a of the Basic Law – ‘Those who have been politically persecuted enjoy the right to asylum’ – was amended to the effect that the right to political asylum in the Federal Republic no longer extended to those who came to

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hottest political debates in Germany in the immediate post-unification period. Trapped at the threshold of his host’s apartment Thomas undergoes an experience of liminality that is the mirror-image of the circumstances confronting asylum-seekers in the Federal Republic: his status as refugee may be decreed by those in authority – in this case, the family elders – but in the rest of the community, the extended family of four generations, he encounters attitudes ranging from mocking curiosity through to bitter resentment and murderous enmity. In contrast to films such as Tevfik Baúer’s Lebewohl, Fremde (Farewell, Stranger, 1991), Kadir Sözen’s Winterblume (Winter Flower, 1996), Seyhan Derin’s Zwischen den Sternen (Between the Stars, 2001) or Yüksel Yavuz’s Kleine Freiheit (A Little Bit of Freedom, 2002), in which the Turkish protagonist is refused asylum and either tragically dies as a consequence or becomes a stateless and illegal immigrant, Çetin eschews a miserabilist scenario and instead engages in a series of intriguing reconfigurations. The initial reversal of the asylum situation reconfigures Thomas as a displaced German whose physical survival may be temporarily guaranteed but whose existential well-being depends on his ability to adapt to the customs, rituals and daily routine of his new home. This enforced integration may have its comic moments, such as when on the occasion of a particular religious festival Thomas is required to kiss everybody’s hand including that of his deadly rival, Mürtüz, but it can also foster the spirit of rapprochement as is evident when Thomas saves Mürtüz’s life by disarming the cuckolded husband who is threatening him with a knife. In other ways, however, the dominant model of multicultural integration is inverted and the German is made to inhabit a role analogous to the clichéd image of the asylum-seeker or migrant labourer: his subaltern status is symbolised by his crouching position on the margins of the room, by his barely remunerated labour (he fixes a fault in the television and entertains the family playing the guitar) and by his mostly mute participation in the household’s daily life (since he only speaks German when he is spoken to and his knowledge of Turkish is restricted to a few phrases gleaned from the dictionary he carries with him). Moreover, when Mürtüz taunts him with the words ‘How does it feel to be homesick in your own land?’, it underlines the ironic reversal of the claustrophobic spaces within which the protagonist of 40 Square Metres of Germany is imprisoned: whereas for Turna it is the world outside that is ‘other’, this is how Thomas experiences the domestic space that holds him captive. Germany via a member state of the European Union or from a third country that recognised the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees and the Protection of Human Rights and Basic Freedom.

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Like 40 Square Metres of Germany, Çetin’s movie ends with the release of its incarcerated protagonist when Thomas is allowed to leave the apartment accompanied by Dilber after one final climactic confrontation. That the viewer is unlikely to respond in the same way to these seemingly similar moments of liberation, however, can be attributed in part to a fundamental formal difference between the two films. In Baúer’s view Dursun is just as much a prisoner as his wife in that he is helpless, unable to adapt and fearful of a society which is foreign to him (Ulrich, 14-15). Yet, it is less easy for the viewer to empathize with Dursun’s situation since the film focuses almost exclusively on Turna’s suffering and shows nothing of her husband’s life outside the apartment. Moreover, Baúer seeks to maximize the degree of identification between the audience and Turna, either by privileging her point of view directly (as, for example, in the scenes of sexual intercourse, which focus on her facial expressions of displeasure and humiliation, and in the use of subjectivized flashbacks and nightmares), or by evoking the hermeticism of her experiential world. The latter is achieved through the prevalence of tightly framed medium shots, close-ups and tracking shots in which the camera itself roams round the flat like a caged animal. Brief, or apparent, shifts in the point of view only serve to emphasize the degree of suture between Turna and the spectatorial position. On one occasion it appears she has plucked up the courage to challenge Dursun over his tyrannical behaviour: in an extended close-up she pleads direct to camera to be allowed more freedom, only for the camera to track back and reveal that, in a speech she can only rehearse but never deliver, she is not addressing her husband but her own reflection in a mirror. On the other occasion when she rebels against her internment, the viewer is similarly locked into Turna’s perspective. On the day of the promised outing to the fair, in growing frustration at Dursun’s failure to return from supposedly fetching the paper, she angrily pulls on the front door handle and discovers to her astonishment that it is not in fact locked. Venturing apprehensively out of the flat on to the darkened hallway she starts to descend the unlit stairway but abruptly abandons her foray into this uncharted territory when she hears someone coming in down below and the hallway light suddenly comes on. Terror-stricken she rushes back to the safety of the flat, but in her panic tries to open the wrong door and is confronted by an elderly lady, who clearly does not understand a word of Turna’s garbled apology. By now a number of other residents have gathered in the hallway. Staring in amazement at this exotic apparition, decked out in all her finery, they react to Turna much in the same way as Dursun had no doubt envisaged. For Turna this brief excursion outside her forty square metres of Germany has become a traumatic ordeal. At this

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juncture Baúer momentarily alters the point of view: whereas for most of the scene he has used chiaroscuro and a distorting wide-angled lens, together with an eerily echoing soundtrack to evoke the sense of a nightmare world as Turna perceives it, the dominant visual effect is now the brilliant colour of Turna’s garments. Additionally, for once Baúer eschews the use of German subtitles, thus placing the viewer in the bedazzled and uncomprehending position of Turna’s neighbours, while nevertheless continuing to foreground Turna’s emotional state of ‘liminal panic’ (Haficy: 1996, 119-44), which only ceases when she reaches the safety of her apartment. Berlin in Berlin contains a sequence very similar to this one, in which Thomas makes his bid for freedom. It begins with a shot of him sitting in his usual position on the floor. All the men in the household have gone out and the mother, who has never approved of Thomas’s presence, exploits this opportunity by pointedly leaving the door to the flat open and telling him, in Turkish, that he can go. Moving to the window to check out the street below, Thomas exchanges looks with the grandmother before assuring her, also in Turkish, that he is not a murderer and bidding her farewell, ‘In Allah’s name’. Çetin then cuts to two of the brothers, Mürtüz and Yüksel, sitting at a table outside the family café. A close-up of a revolver, partly hidden under a newspaper, reveals that Thomas, whose feet are then shown in close-up descending the stairs, has been set up. Reaching the exit to the building, Thomas sees Yüksel crossing the street and realizing that it is a trap he runs back into the tenement courtyard where, reflecting his state of dislocation, the camera executes a 360-degree tracking shot around him, followed by a point-of-view shot of the sky. A graphic match subsequently revealed as the gaze up at the sky by the guntoting Yüksel standing outside on the street immediately nullifies any metaphorical connotations of freedom that his image may carry. A repeat close-up of Thomas’s feet, now hurriedly ascending the stairs, is followed by a pronounced point-of-view shot down the stairwell of Yüksel hot in pursuit of his prey. Paralleling the identical moment of panic in Turna’s retreat in 40 Square Metres of Germany, Thomas frantically hammers on the door of a woman neighbour, who leaves it on the chain and refuses to answer his anguished cry for help. Çetin then cuts back to the family flat where Dilber surveys the now empty space usually occupied by Thomas. With an inscrutable expression that might signify either relief or disappointment, she moves to the door to the apartment and opens it slightly at precisely the moment that Thomas reaches the threshold. As he steps towards her, the couple exchange looks, and although Dilber then pushes the door to, she leaves it ajar so that Thomas is able to follow her

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back into the flat and resume his usual seated position on the floor by the window. This sequence differs from its equivalent in 40 Square Metres of Germany in one crucial respect: in Çetin’s film the point of view is not wedded to the imprisoned protagonist but is dispersed amongst a number of the characters. This formal distinction serves to reinforce the shift from an isolated, oppressed victim with only false hopes of liberation, to an active individual whose efforts at self-emancipation attract alliances (principally from the women of the household). In the case of Dilber, two particular moments in the sequence underscore the sense of a bond burgeoning between Thomas and her. Her act of looking at Thomas through a slight opening in the door, then pushing it to, reprises an earlier scene when she watches him trying to entertain her son, Mustafa. On that occasion, however, her facial expression manifests clear disapproval, which she then signals further by calling the little boy over to her and pointedly shutting the door on Thomas. Secondly, at that point in the escape sequence when Dilber realizes Thomas has gone, there is an abrupt change on the soundtrack from a tense, agitated musical score to a slow, rather schmaltzy theme played on an acoustic guitar. This is in effect a form of aural flashforward since it anticipates the very melody that, in a later scene, Thomas plays on the guitar, ostensibly for the entertainment of the family but clearly meant as a love song to Dilber. The film’s closing image of the couple walking away from the flat hand-in-hand would suggest that Thomas’s feelings for Dilber are reciprocated. However, for Çetin this is less the tacked-on happy ending typical of melodrama than an encapsulation of the film’s underlying social statement: ‘At the end of the film you see that nationality is unimportant. Whenever people live together they are forced to get on’ (qtd in Wingender, 174-5). Although both 40 Square Metres of Germany and Berlin in Berlin share a visual emphasis on hermetic or phobic spaces, there is a further difference between the two films with regard to perspective. For unlike 40 Square Metres of Germany, where the camera never leaves the apartment block or the adjoining courtyard, the predominant focus on the enclosed space in Berlin in Berlin is punctuated by aerial shots encompassing the eastern part of the city and by scenes in the immediate vicinity of the flat, clearly delineated by authentic street signs and landmarks (such as Manteuffelstrasse and the underground station of Schlesisches Tor). Whereas in the Cold War era the title of Çetin’s film would have been most likely understood as an allusion to the political divide running through the city, the shots of a now unified Berlin undergoing physical as well as political reconstruction suggest that other demarcations of

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difference may be foregrounded. Moreover, the familiar iconography of Kreuzberg, the district popularly known as ‘little Istanbul’ on account of the density of its Turkish population, prepares the viewer for the film’s presentation of an ‘other’ Berlin as part of the remodelling process that unification has accelerated. This in fact confirms the expectation prompted by the opening sequence following the initial establishing shots in which we see Thomas clandestinely taking snapshots of Dilber, with her face and headscarf captured in a series of freeze frames. Çetin thereby replicates a point of view that was frequently inscribed in the earlier films featuring migrants, namely the voyeuristic ethnographic gaze. A simple but telling example of this perspective occurs in Yasemin in the episode where the eponymous heroine dances with her father at her sister’s wedding. Although intrinsically a delightful scene that strongly conveys the father and daughter’s mutual love and affection, it is in part shown from the alienating point of view of Yasemin’s German boyfriend, Jan, who is excluded from the event and observes the dancing through a window from outside the hall. That he is only deterred from continuing to watch the festivities by his mates, who volubly and disapprovingly mock his voyeuristic tendencies, merely serves to underscore the status of the gaze in question. In Berlin in Berlin, however, it is here that the third of the film’s inversions is effected, for, as Deniz Göktürk has pointed out, the voyeuristic ethnographic gaze informing the film’s opening sequence is gradually reversed as the German increasingly becomes the object of the Turks’ curious scrutiny and surveillance (Göktürk: 2000, 71). The position of (sexual) voyeur is in any case not unique to Thomas but is shared by Mürtüz, most notably in the scene where he watches through a keyhole as the beautiful sister-in-law he covets masturbates. As well as for Dilber’s affections Mürtüz and Thomas could also be said to be competing for the status of the film’s protagonist, an affinity underscored by the conspicuous similarities in appearance between the two actors Çetin cast in these parts. For while narratively and to a certain extent perspectivally the film is centred on Thomas, its psychologically most complex character is undoubtedly Mürtüz, in whom Angelica Fenner sees ‘the synecdoche for jeopardised Turkish male authority not only within Germany but also within the context of secularisation and modernisation in Turkey’ (Fenner 122). In the film’s macro-Berlin this jeopardisation is manifested in the racial prejudice Mürtüz must endure as the object of hostile stares from passengers in the underground or when he is first menaced, then beaten up by a group of racist skinheads; while in the micro-Berlin represented by the four generations of his family he finds his status and authority are repeatedly challenged. Assuming the role of

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custodian of the family honour he is immediately frustrated in his attempts to implement the principle of Namus by his grandmother’s recourse to a different symbolic code that requires him to observe the custom of affording sanctuary to a guest. Then he is subjected to ridicule by his youngest brother, who, typical of the third generation of Turks in Germany, is the culturally most assimilated member of the family and consequently dismisses both Thomas’s incarceration and Mürtüz’s vengeful intent towards him as ‘crazy ideas’. When Thomas voluntarily leaves the apartment and thus releases the brothers from the obligation to respect him as a guest, Mürtüz must then suffer the indignity of being challenged by Mustafa, his little nephew, who, sensing his uncle’s weakening resolve, seizes the latter’s gun and vows to avenge his dead father himself. Finally, when all obstacles have been removed and, confronting Thomas on the open street, Mürtüz now has the opportunity to shoot his opponent, his inability to do so derives perhaps from the agonising acknowledgement that such a futile act of vengeance would both spring from and be tantamount to ‘a ritual of masculinity now devoid of meaning’ (Wingender 171). The anguished scream with which the film closes distils Mürtüz’s despair at both his loss of status and the sexual rejection by his object of desire, who now, to compound his sense of inadequacy, departs in the amorous company of his detested rival. Such a seemingly forced narrative closure prompts Deniz Göktürk to ponder whether this is not – disappointingly – ‘once again a Turkish woman liberated by a German man’ (Göktürk 2000, 71). However, as in the case of Yasemin, with which this comment invites obvious comparison, the ending is susceptible of more ambiguous readings. First, none of the women in Berlin in Berlin appears as the passive victim such a model of liberation presupposes. And while Dilber may lack the matriarchal authority that the grandmother exercises over her household, in resisting the family’s expectation that she should welcome the solicitations of her deceased husband’s brother she nevertheless asserts her right to follow her own sexual preferences. Moreover, she does so at no little personal cost – she thereby forfeits the custody of her son – and, as her final words to Mürtüz indicate, with no illusions about the uncertain future with Thomas on which she is choosing to embark: ‘Mürtüz, … You haven’t the right to kill me. I don’t even know him. Let me go. I’m leaving for myself.’ Even in a reading of the dénouement as fairy-tale romance Angelica Fenner can at least allow for the possibility that Çetin may have resorted to melodrama’s device of the pasted-on happy ending for the purpose of underscoring a broader political argument:

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In the face of ongoing contestation among German politicians and legislators as to whether or not the nation should concede to the status of having become ‘ein Einwanderungsland’ (a country of immigration), Çetin may indeed have chosen to indulge a degree of wish fulfillment in the image of the Turkish-German couple, subtly reminding his European viewership of the manner in which conflicting cultural groups have often resolved their differences – namely, through a continual process of selfreinvention, redefinition, and hybridity. (Fenner 131).

This reference to the film’s European audience alludes to the commercial success Berlin in Berlin enjoyed in both Turkey and Germany, which in turn attests to the film’s capacity to open up a plurality of spectatorial points of view and ‘provoke viewers of different cultural positionalities’ (Fenner 106). One German reviewer celebrated Çetin’s achievement by acclaiming it as the moment when ‘minority cinema caught on with mainstream audiences’ (Peitz 14-15). Albeit in less hyperbolic vein, Deniz Goktürk also sees the film as marking a significant departure from earlier filmic representations of migrant experience. This was only possible, she speculated, because Çetin had been able through private financing to escape the German framework of subsidy that promoted a ‘patronising culture of compassion’ (Göktürk: 2000, 71; 2002: 249). In a moment of self-reflexivity Berlin in Berlin anticipates its own landmark status when, on bidding farewell to his hosts, Thomas donates his cherished camera to Mürtüz’s father. If, as Fenner suggests, this gesture ‘signals the forthright transference of the power of representation from German to Turk’ (Fenner 136), then following Berlin in Berlin the mantle of cinematic representation passed to a younger generation of Turkish directors in Germany. Although far from homogeneous, this group of filmmakers nevertheless share a common motivation in their desire to break with the dominant image sustained by earlier portrayals of migrants in Germany, that of the Turk as victim. For example, Fatih Akin, arguably the most successful of these ‘young Turks’, began his career not as a director but as an actor and the main reason why he started to make his own films was because he was no longer willing to play the ‘stereotype Turk’ in film productions where ‘migrants could only appear in one guise: as a problem’ (qtd in Dehn 3). Correlatively, the notion of being trapped ‘between two cultures’ is rejected in favour of marking out a ‘third space of enunciation’ where more culturally hybrid models of identity-formation can be tested and enacted. As Akin explains: ‘I see having grown up in two cultures as an advantage. That gives me security. I do not have to transmit a message of tolerance or deny one of my cultures. I simply link them – in my person and in my films’ (qtd in Seeßlen: 2000, 42). As critics have noted, one

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indication of the freedom migrants increasingly enjoy is the cinematic spaces they now inhabit: no longer trapped within hermetic domestic spaces or other sites of confinement, they now tend to be situated in a multiplicity of urban and cosmopolitan environments where they are often able to demonstrate a new and confident mobility.7 The retreat from a cinema stressing the problems of ethnic difference scarcely seemed heralded, however, by the opening of Akin’s first feature film, Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock, 1997). Here the film’s three protagonists are each introduced in a sequence that establishes their criminal persona and, in a fusion of freeze-frame and subtitle, their nationality as, respectively, ‘Costa, Greek’, ‘Bobby, Serb’ and ‘Gabriel, Turk’. While Mark Terkessidis reads this sledgehammer emphasis on ethnicity as an ironic and subversive reaction to the criminalisation of immigrant youth in Germany,8 for Barbara Mennel any such critical impetus is lost as the film becomes ‘mired in genre conventions that celebrate hyperbolic masculinity, violence and criminality’ (Mennel 148). Arguably, such reversal of stereotyping is achieved more successfully in Akin’s second feature film, Im Juli (In July, 2001), in the figure of Isa, the menacing Mercedes driver with the dead body in the boot. Played by Mehmet Kurtulus (who was also cast as Gabriel in the first film), Isa does indeed appear to be an extension of Kurtulus’s role in Short Sharp Shock as an archetypal Turkish gangster. And yet, when the explanation for the corpse is eventually revealed it confounds any such negative expectations on the viewer’s part by establishing Isa as a highly moral and honourable character. Clearly, Akin is not averse to deploying stereotypes for the purpose of challenging them. In the opening sequence of Short Sharp Shock Gabriel is first shown being released from prison. There he is met by his family including his father, a devout Muslim, who first slaps then embraces his son in a gesture that both asserts paternal authority and signals Gabriel’s acceptance back into the family. Thereafter we only see the father praying, a representation that comes perilously close to the figure of the speechless Turk propagated by ‘guestworker literature’ and the ‘cinema of the affected’. Similarly, the basic narrative of Gegen die Wand (Head-On, 2004) is predicated on the familiar clash between modernity and tradition that is frequently structured on gender lines and embodied here by Sibel, on the one hand, and her domineering father and brother, on the other. The point of the film, Akin insists, is not culturally 7

See Göktürk (2000, 64-6; 2002, 248 & 254-5) and Seeßlen (2002, 11). Mark Terkessidis, ‘Globale Kultur in Deutschland, oder: Wie unterdrückte Frauen und Kriminelle die Hybridität retten’, posted in the electronic journal parapluie 23 September 1999 http://parapluie.de, (qtd in Mennel 148). 8

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specific: ‘I don’t want to attack Turkish tradition or denounce the older generation. Nevertheless I hope that conservative parents – regardless of which culture they belong to – will be provoked by my film to reflect and recognise what damage they can cause with an excess of strict discipline’ (qtd in Langwald 1-2). Another trope of constraint with which Akin repeatedly engages in his films is that of incarceration. As Hamid Naficy has shown, the iconography of exilic and transnational cinema features images of captivity and hermetic spaces that take on both literal and metaphorical form (Naficy: 2001, 188-221). It is noticeable, however, that in Akin’s films prisons are configured directly and either are shown only at the moment of liberation (as in Short Sharp Shock and Head-On) or function as sites of enlightenment. In Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven, 2007) it is in prison that Ayten is converted by Susanne’s act of forgiveness and reconciliation to renounce violence in pursuit of her political struggle, just as in In July it is only when they are locked up together that the film’s protagonist, Daniel Bannier, discovers the true purpose of Isa’s transnational expedition, a revelation that enables the two men to forge a new bond of understanding. Similarly, in Head-On it is in the brief scene of Sibel’s prison visit that she first indicates to Cahit that she loves him, a moment that transforms his whole outlook on life. That transformation is physically apparent at the moment of his release from jail as a steel door opens to reveal a now modern-looking, debonair Cahit sporting shades and a new short hair-style. This recalls a similar make-over at the end of Baúer’s Farewell to a False Paradise when, as an index of the Westernisation Elif has undergone during her prison sentence, she is released dressed in jeans, trainers and a man’s jacket. Like Cahit, Elif is returning to her homeland, but unlike Cahit, who is now on a quest for Sibel and – possibly – also for his existential roots,9 Elif is being deported back to Turkey where, in accordance with a typically miserabilist scenario, she faces either another trial for the same crime or certain death at the hands of an avenging brother-in-law. Just how unconstraining prison can be in Akin’s movies is epitomised by Daniel’s exit from jail in In July where a door is fortuitously left open and he simply wanders unchallenged back into the outside world. On his transnational journey that takes him from Hamburg across southern Europe to Istanbul, national borders prove to be equally porous. Whereas 9

At any rate, as Akin indicates, Cahit associates his return to Turkey with the quest for a better life: ‘If there is a common element in all my films, then it is indeed that all the characters have a longing for another, better life … and that is the case in Head-On’ (Akin 11).

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in the ‘cinema of the affected’ boundaries are fixed, static and frequently impenetrable, here they are either easily removable obstructions or liminal, transitional spheres where new identities can or indeed have to be constructed. When Daniel is held up at the Romanian border because he has lost his passport, the toll bar blocking his path is simply removed once he has performed a mock marriage ceremony with his travelling companion, Juli. That the corrupt official who instigates this performance is played by Akin himself is indicative of the way the director stages the film as a whole as a series of border-crossings. The final one, captured in a helicopter shot of cross-border traffic, takes place on the Bosporous Bridge in Istanbul, long held to be the pivot of East and West, Asia and Europe, and a symbolic location that also appears in Head-On as well as in Akin’s discursive documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005). The state of liminality is referenced directly in the (English) title of The Edge of Heaven, which, according to Philip French, ‘refers somewhat ironically to the new Europe’ (2007). Although the German title of Akin’s movie, meaning ‘on the other side’, establishes separation and otherness, the film itself frequently links difference and commonality. Like geographical borders, linguistic and musical boundaries are constantly crossed or dissolved in Akin’s films, all of which, with the exception Solino (2002), are polyglot. In Head-On Cahit and Sibel speak German to each other but revert to Turkish for moments of tenderness. When, after his release from prison, Cahit seeks out Sibel’s cousin Selma in Istanbul in order to discover Sibel’s whereabouts, he unexpectedly switches to English in order to articulate feelings that otherwise would be too difficult or embarrassing to express in Turkish or German. This exchange recalls the other moment in the film when a character has recourse to English, namely Dr Schiller, who is treating Cahit after his suicide attempt and counsels him by citing the lyrics by the band The The: ‘If you can’t change the world, change your world.’ Later, after his visit to Selma, when Cahit whiles away the time by playing the piano in the hotel lobby, he bashes out the haunting bass line riff from a number by the Hamburg band Zinoba ‘Life’s what you make it’, a song expressive of the film’s general advocacy of transgressing the bounds of cultural determinism. In addition to rock Akin’s non-diegetic music evinces a rich cultural mix, including folk, jazz, Latin, soul, hip-hop and Rap as well as Turkish folksongs. In Head-On Akin employs sad traditional love songs in the Brechtian device of dividing the film into acts, with each introduced by a band led by the Turkish clarinetist Selim Sesler, standing on the Asian side of the Bosporous and performing directly to the audience. The singer

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in the band, Idil Üner, plays the part of Melek in In July, the beautiful young woman who so enchants Daniel, not least in the episode on the beach in Hamburg where she sings a Turkish song before a group of admiring Germans. Akin has explained10 that this scene was particularly influenced by Indian cinema where songs, particularly those celebrating love, are frequently employed as an integral part of the narrative. In a selfreflexive moment in Short Sharp Shock Bobby, the Serbian gangster, expresses his adulation of the character played by Al Pacino in Brian de Palma’s remake of Scarface (1983), an identification that will of course extend to Bobby sharing the same violent end as Pacino’s Tony Mantana. Akin’s predilection for crossing filmic boundaries is also apparent in his comment that each of his first three feature films was modelled on different styles and genres: the gangster movie Short Sharp Shock sought to emulate the New Hollywood of Cassavetes and the early Scorsese; the road movie In July borrowed from the work of Emir Kusturica and the 60s French adventure films, while Solino was the attempt to reinvent Italian Neorealism (Akin 11).

Mobility not Captivity? Thomas Arslan’s ‘Berlin Trilogy’ Head-On, which, like Short Sharp Shock and the opening episodes of In July, is set in Hamburg, was conceived by Akin as the first part in a trilogy about ‘love, death and the devil’ (Akin 11), with The Edge of Heaven as the second in the series. By then Thomas Arslan had already completed a trilogy of films – Geschwister – Kardesler (Brothers and Sisters, 1995), Dealer (1998) and Der schöne Tag (A Fine Day, 2000) – the focus of which is not so much thematic as locational, namely Berlin. This is not the Berlin of Kutluƣ Ataman’s Lola + Bilidikid (1998), which features some of the capital’s historically resonant landmarks such as the Olympia Stadium, the Victory Column in the Tiergarten and the Landwehr canal, but rather the city’s most multicultural district of Kreuzberg, where Arslan himself has lived for a number of years. While his motives for making Brothers and Sisters (1996) were thus partly biographical, the film’s origins are also to be found in his dissatisfaction with the previous portrayals of Turks in German movies. Like Akin, Arslan abhors cliché but such is his distaste for stereotypy that it almost seems to extend to any form of typification: ‘I consider this “self-imposed obligation to operate with representative characters” to be a dangerous matter. There are enough 10

In the commentary included as a special feature on the DVD of Gegen die Wand.

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of these representative figures in the media such as the Turkish greengrocer, who at the same time stands for an entire culture. In many films that often amounts to the usual stereotypes such as “for or against the headscarf” and “for or against forced marriage”. To that extent my film is rather untypical of one particular image of the Turks’ (qtd in Bax). While it is the director’s basic respect for his characters’ individuality that informs his wish to release them from the burden of typicality, the tendency to inscribe the general within the particular arguably inheres in Arslan’s chosen form of (Neo)realism. Be that as it may, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that in its finely nuanced portrait of a Berlin family Brothers and Sisters presents the viewer with ‘two possible models of a Turkish-German biography, middle-class accommodation and social dissidence’ (Seeßlen: 2002, 13). The latter is represented by the eldest son, the 20-year old Erol. He has opted voluntarily for Turkish citizenship, a choice which now makes him liable for compulsory military service in Turkey. The film’s narrative begins with the arrival of the letter informing him that he is being drafted and it concludes some four weeks later with the family’s taxi drive to the airport where they bid farewell to Erol as he passes through passport control on his way to Turkey. Erol’s conscription causes a rift in the family, for while his German mother fears for her son’s well-being and tries to dissuade him from enlisting, his Turkish father, who has lived in Germany for some twenty years, takes great pride in his son’s desire to serve his country. Erol’s fervent embracing of his national identity is illustrated by a stormy exchange he has with two of his Turkish male friends on the subject of asylum-seekers. When one of them seeks to end the altercation by remarking that Erol is not a proper Turk but, in a spiteful allusion to Erol’s German mother, ‘a bastard’, Erol stomps off lest he fail to control his fury at having his ethnic credentials questioned. However, his decision to join the Turkish military is not simply born out of a sense of national identification; rather, it also reflects Erol’s profound disaffection with his German environment. Having dropped out of school and with no prospect of employment he has become embroiled in petty crime and a series of dodgy deals that have saddled him with substantial debts. His departure for Turkey thus offers Erol a convenient escape route from the threats of his creditors. Although Erol is by no means estranged from his family, his home offers him little by way of recreational activity except for his video-player and even this merely becomes a source of friction with his brother as they have to share a bedroom. Consequently, it is the streets of Kreuzberg that constitute Erol’s primary habitat. Brothers and Sisters contains numerous

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scenes including several long takes that show nothing but Erol walking these streets. Partly he does so simply as a means of occupying his time, but the alleyways and street corners are also the terrain on which he can conduct his wheeler-dealing. Even if Erol seems at home in these urban spaces, they hardly enhance his sense of freedom, however, for, as various scenes demonstrate, the streets also harbour, and then expose him to, those elements that pose a threat to him: his creditors, other criminals, neo-Nazi racist youths and the police. Nor do places of recreation, such as the gym where he practises body-building and martial arts or the billiard club where he likes to hang out with his mates, offer him anything more than a temporary sanctuary. Even the Turkish community in Berlin, with which Erol makes a concerted effort to involve himself, seems unable to temper his feelings of isolation. Significantly, the potentially most joyous scene in the film, the wedding of one of Erol’s Turkish friends, ends with a shot of his mates all happily dancing together while Erol is pointedly shown sitting alone, moodily detached from the celebrations. Erol’s peripatetic existence ultimately betokens not so much a confident appropriation of urban spaces as a growing sense of displacement and social exclusion that culminates in the decision to abandon those spaces altogether. Erol’s decision to return to Turkey and join the army is incomprehensible to his younger 18-year old brother, Ahmed. Like their 17-year old sister, Leyla, Ahmed has a German passport and has chosen not to retain his Turkish citizenship. Unlike his two siblings – Leyla is serving an apprenticeship as a seamstress at a local clothing factory – Ahmed has opted to stay on at school and do his Abitur. Brothers and Sisters opens with a shot that is reprised in the film’s penultimate scene of Ahmed standing in his bedroom with his eyes closed. While Arslan may also be playing on any preconceptions on the part of a viewer reading this as a moment of prayer, this meditative pose hints at different aspects of Ahmed’s psychological make-up. On the one hand, as his German girlfriend confirms when she complains that she always has to guess what is on his mind because he never talks to her, it suggests an intensely private interiority that he is reluctant to open up to others. On the other hand, Ahmed’s capacity for contemplation and self-reflection points up his more cerebral nature in contrast to the cult of physicality his brother practises. Two moments in particular highlight these differing sensibilities. Having been harassed by the police during a raid on their billiard club Erol and two of his friends take out their frustration on a couple of neo-Nazi youths. When in the ensuing fracas one of his mates pulls out a flick-knife, Erol signals the limits of his aggressive intent by hauling him away and

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castigating him for this act of ‘idiocy’.11 He then turns his aggression on his brother, who has pointedly refused to get involved in the brawl and as a result finds himself the butt of Erol’s accusation of cowardice. Another disagreement centres on the brothers’ attitude to martial arts in general and, in particular, to the icon of the Kung Fu genre, Bruce Lee. Erol cautions Ahmed that he needs to learn the art of self-defence if he is not to become a victim of the ubiquitous street violence. While Ahmed does indeed frequently experience the streets as sites of conflict, Erol’s counsel is partly a self-fulfilling prophesy as he himself is often the instigator of the violence his brother so detests. Moreover, Erol’s championing of Bruce Lee as a role model is met with a dismissive cynicism from his brother that escalates into anger when he is distracted from his studies by Erol’s constant playing of his video of Enter the Dragon (1973). Drawing on readings of Kung Fu movies and their protagonists as ‘metaphors for the downtrodden’ and as mythological narratives on the righting of injustice, Barbara Mennel has argued that these scenes are integral to the way in which Brothers and Sisters ‘references, appropriates and reworks genre conventions of the ghetto film’: A discussion about Bruce Lee and martial arts poses Erol’s mythological ghetto narrative and Ahmed’s pragmatic attitude about educational possibilities in Germany as two different modes of making sense of their existence and escaping its limitations. The brothers embody opposing alternatives in ghettocentric films: the foregrounding of body culture versus a humanist, universalist emphasis on education (Mennel 145).

While this interpretation may seem to be at variance with Arslan’s initial desire to detach his characters from the straitjacket of representative status, it is nevertheless compatible with the more subtle approach he has subsequently advocated in relation to stereotypes: ‘If it is already no longer possible to avoid clichés altogether, one can perhaps attempt to pass beyond them, that is to say, to try and use such images as the point of departure in order gradually to dismantle them in such a way that something else becomes visible’ (qtd in Dehn 13). In the second part of the Berlin trilogy the cliché in question is that of the immigrant criminal and, specifically, the drug-pusher. As a component of what is a quintessentially transnational practice predicated on evading borders, the narcotics dealer figures in numerous recent Turkish-German films, including Short Sharp Shock and Head-On, as well as Yüksel Yavuz’s 11 Erol thereby echoes the very word that Ahmed uses to describe his brother’s decision to do military service in Turkey.

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Aprilkinder (April Children, 1998) and A Little Bit of Freedom and Buket Alakus’s Anam – Meine Mutter (Anam – My Mother, 2001). Arguably, such destabilising of stereotypes has opened up the way for their mainstreaming, for, as illustrated by films like Lars Becker’s Kanak Attack (2000), Christian Wagner’s Ghettokids (2002) and Detlev Buck’s Knallhart (Tough Enough, 2006) German national cinema now no longer configures ethnic minorities as victims but as perpetrators. Can, the Turkish-German protagonist of Dealer, could be seen as a projection of what might have become of Erol had he not chosen to leave Berlin (and the affinity between the two characters is underscored by the casting of the same actor, Tamer Yigit, in both roles). Together with Jale, the mother of his 3-year old daughter, Can lives in Kreuzberg earning a living as a petty drugs dealer. Finally wearying of his half-hearted efforts to abandon his criminal lifestyle, Jale leaves him and Can’s fate is sealed when in the course of a police raid he is arrested for drug-pushing and sentenced to four years imprisonment, at the end of which he will in all probability face deportation to Turkey. Unlike Akin’s Short Sharp Shock, Arslan’s Dealer bears no resemblance to the sensationalist portrayals of low-life criminality in the typical Hollywood gangster-action film, but nor does it correspond completely to the quintessentially social-determinist scenarios of a miserabilist naturalism in which characters are denied agency and configured as merely passive victims of their social circumstances. What concerned him in this film, Arslan has observed, was not so much the social environment as ‘the portrayal of a state of mind it produces’. In other words, he tries to show what part is played in Can’s fate by social factors and how much is his own responsibility (qtd in Seeßlen 2002, 13; 2000, 42). Alone amongst the protagonists in Arslan’s films Can is assigned the role of narrator, but far from establishing him as the film’s organising consciousness the sparse laconic voice-overs that punctuate the soundtrack merely serve to underline the extent to which Can is not the author of his own narrative. ‘I wanted to change my life but didn’t know how’, he remarks at one point and long before he ends up in prison it is apparent that Can is partly ‘the prisoner of his own indecisiveness’ (Dehn 13). Through a series of encounters he has with other characters the film adumbrates some of the alternatives to his life of crime that Can has failed to embrace. During a visit to his father Can learns that his mother has suffered a second nervous breakdown, the family shop is faring badly and they will probably have to sell up. When his father restates his long-cherished hope that Can could have made something out of the business, his offer is rebuffed with the words ‘You know that kind of work doesn’t appeal to me’. This statement

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is borne out when, in a final and desperate attempt to prove to Jale that he has mended his ways, Can takes on a job at a restaurant working in the kitchen. Predictably, he finds this menial work so demeaning that he soon gives it up and reverts to dealing on the streets. He only comes by the job in the first place because the owner of the restaurant is a relative of an old acquaintance whom Can bumps into one day. Not having seen him for some time Can is dismayed to learn that this is because his friend is now studying law at college. Like Erol in Brothers and Sisters Can is no more attracted to the pathway of full-time education than he is to that of regular employment. Another option that Can rejects is the route back into mainstream society suggested by one of the plain-clothes policemen who keep him under surveillance. Since this would entail either setting up or testifying against Hakan, the small-time boss of the criminal ring Can works for, he rejects the man’s offer of help as serving only to compromise his position with his fellow dealers. Instead Can clings to the hope that he can attain respectability by becoming the manager of a local bar but when Hakan, who has held out this prospect to him, is murdered by one of his gangland rivals, it is revealed as just as great an illusion as Can’s subsequent expectation that his beautiful girlfriend will still be there for him after he has served his prison sentence. Although Can and Jale spend most of their time together arguing, there are two sequences in Dealer that evoke the domestic happiness which, under different circumstances, might have given Can’s life a more solid foundation. Both show Can with his little daughter, in the first instance taking her across town to the child-minder and in the second sequence walking through the local park en route to the aquarium. On both occasions the bond between father and child is reflected in the charming image of Can carrying Meral on his shoulders. These sequences are also untypical in representing Can engaged in purposive motion towards a clear destination. At one point in the film the voice-over articulates Can’s perception that ‘everything was going wrong … You could hardly move’. This lack of mobility is manifested not only psychologically in Can’s indecisiveness and passivity but also literally in his predominantly static relationship to his environment. Whereas the figures in Brothers and Sisters are typically seen bestriding the streets, in Dealer they are shown endlessly hanging about and sitting around, seemingly able only to occupy rather than move within the urban spaces. The staticness of characters who appear almost incapacitated by their environment is compounded by Arslan’s predilection for the extended camera-hold. In an early scene taking place at night Can is captured in medium close-up and in shallow focus against a background of moving traffic, a shot of him sitting

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motionless that is sustained for fully 60 seconds. While this serves to undercut the explanation he gives to Jale in the next scene that he had been too busy to meet her as they had agreed earlier that day, the moment is of more than just narrative significance, being expressive of a whole state of mind. Similarly, in a later scene after he has given up his job at the restaurant, Can returns home to find his own kitchen a mess with dirty dishes piled up in the sink. He reacts by smashing some of the plates, after which, as if paralysed by this untypical show of aggression, he simply stands immobile, gazing passively at the floor for what seems an interminable time. The display of inaction bordering on lifelessness is heightened in the film’s closing images, which reprise the various locations Can has inhabited: the park where he walked with Meral, the dilapidated piece of waste land and the doorway where he conducted his transactions, the kitchen where he worked in the restaurant, his empty flat and an urban skyline featuring four apartment blocks. The absence of any signs of human life in these images enhances the impression of a series of stills, the static nature of which both crystallises the overall rhythm of Arslan’s film and contradicts the accompanying voice-over: ‘Strange how everything has changed.’ Even though Can is delivering this comment from behind bars, the montage emphasises that, in fact, very little has changed in his situation: his freedom of action was essentially no less restricted in his urban environment than it is now in this real prison. The foregrounding in this final sequence of an environment that effaces human agency suggests philosophical affinities with naturalism. This is a mode of representation Brecht dismissively described as a ‘fatalistic realism’ (Brecht 519) and there is, indeed, a certain inevitability about Can’s downward slide into social marginality.12 Narratively, too, with its downbeat focus on the quotidian and the undramatic, Dealer bears the familiar hallmark of naturalism’s ‘slice of life’ portrayal of reality. Arslan’s film style, however, is far removed from the illusion of immediacy naturalism seeks to create. By employing static shots of excessive duration and a camera that observes the protagonist in a conspicuously detached manner, Arslan aims to distance the viewer and thus avoid the spectatorial emotion commonly evoked by naturalism, pity. As critics like Anna Kuhn and Aysel Özakin have argued, this was also a response earlier representations of the migrant experience seemed designed to foster: ‘In the double sense of Mitleid, it allows German readers [and viewers] both to empathise with and feel sorry for the 12 Arslan himself describes the petty-crime milieu Can inhabits as a ‘mixture of vitality and fatalism’ (qtd in Seeßlen 13).

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Gastarbeiter they are oppressing daily. It thereby permits them to placate their consciences and to feel superior at the same time’ (Kuhn 192).13 After Brothers and Sisters and Dealer, which were mainly centred on male protagonists, Arslan’s primary concern in completing his Berlin trilogy was ‘this time to tell the story of a female character, a young woman who has a profession and who is asking herself questions about her life’ (Arslan 1); a person, moreover, ‘with her own secrets, contradictions and distinctive features that cannot be reduced to her ethnic background’ (qtd in Hering 48). In fact, Brothers and Sisters does feature one such young woman in embryonic form in the figure of Erol and Ahmed’s sister, Leyla. However, while Göktürk sees her as exemplifying a ‘shift in the representation of migrants’, a ‘modern metropolitan figure’ at ease and very much in place on the streets of Kreuzberg (Göktürk: 2000, 64-5), for Mennel ‘the emphasis on the realistic portrayal of her at the workplace is reminiscent of the earlier socially critical phase of TurkishGerman filmmaking’ (Mennel 146). A Fine Day would seem to support the former interpretation, for just as the character of Erol could be said to prefigure that of Can, so Deniz, the protagonist of the final part of the trilogy, can be seen as an extension of Leyla (and, once again, the casting of the same actor, Serpil Turhan, in both roles serves to underline the similarity).14 While Leyla does indeed move freely and confidently within the urban locality of Kreuzberg, her domestic space is by contrast a source of tension, occasioned by the continual family rows and the physical constraints placed on her freedom of movement by her father (such as when he forbids her to go to Hamburg for the weekend with her boyfriend). She longs to escape these restrictions by moving into a flat of her own with her friend Sevim. Four years older than Leyla, Deniz, likewise a Berliner of Turkish origin, has already taken this step and although her family life is also not without its problems, she demonstrates her independence by virtue of the control she can exercise over her private space and the confidence with which she pursues her budding career as an actress. A Fine Day follows one day in Deniz’s life, a day that begins with her decision to break off the unsatisfactory liaison with her boyfriend, Jan. In the morning of this fine summer’s day she performs in a dubbing studio, meets up with Jan in order to end their relationship and then visits her 13 Similarly, Aysel Özakin describes pity as a means of reinforcing patterns of cultural dominance and wonders whether ‘it isn’t the most refined expression of scorn and contempt’ (Özakin 9). 14 The consanguinity between the young women is further suggested by the fact that Deniz has an elder sister called Leyla.

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severely depressed mother. In the afternoon she auditions for a casting agency, gets to know Diego, a Portuguese boy she meets on the underground, and has a meal with her sister, who breaks the news to her that she is pregnant and is apprehensive about giving up her job and becoming a housewife. The evening and the early hours of the morning Deniz spends talking to Diego. Over breakfast in a café she gets into a discussion with a woman academic about the various discourses of love before returning to the dubbing studio. The film closes with Deniz making eye-contact with a young man as she travels home on the underground. While it is these various encounters with other people around which Deniz’s day is organised, the film itself is structured around the transitions between them, for the dominant image is that of Deniz travelling, on the SBahn and the U-Bahn, by tram and by taxi, on escalators and above all on foot through the streets and parks of Berlin.15 In contrast to Erol’s aimless wanderings and Can’s immobility, Deniz is perpetually on the move, but both with a precise destination in mind and the air of the flұneur, the leisurely stroller delighting in the urban ambience. And yet this outward dynamism is also symptomatic of an inner restlessness for, as Deniz’s sister remarks of her, she is ‘constantly on the search for something’.16 Significantly, all the conversations Deniz has in the course of the day touch on the nature of love and that includes the one she performs in the dubbing studio. This is a scene from Eric Rohmer’s Conte d’été (Summer’s Tale, 1996), a film showing a man caught between two women, and although A Fine Day presents a woman manoeuvring between two men, the lines Deniz utters in her acting capacity could just as easily have been spoken by her in her real-life conversations. Evidencing yet again the transnational circulation of visual culture, the reference to Rohmer as one of the various directors whose work has influenced Arslan17 is just one instance of self-reflexivity in A Fine Day. Similarly, a film that portrays the daily life of a young woman introduces her at its conclusion to a figure whose professional expertise lies in ‘teaching the history of the everyday’. Moreover, given that this part is played by Elke Schmitter, in real life the film critic of Der Spiegel, and 15

‘It was clear that Deniz’s journeys through town play an important role, that we accompany her en route and that this would be the crucial factor in the rhythm of the film. I like showing how someone moves from one place to another. The journeys are not dead time.’ (Arslan 1) 16 See also David Clarke’s discussion (2006, 168-171) of this aspect of A Fine Day. 17 Other influences he cites include Jean Eustache, Maurice Pialat and Abbas Kiarostami (Arslan 1).

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that in both the fiction and reality she is addressing her comments to a Turkish-German actress, it is tempting to see certain aspects of her disquisition on the history of love as mirroring the development of Turkish-German cinema: ‘Earlier relationships were mainly ruled by work…. Values such as protection, security and solidarity were more important then. Today we have many more opportunities to give expression to our emotions.’ This in turn echoes the answer Deniz gives when asked by one of the children in her neighbourhood what parts she plays as an actor: ‘Everything possible.’ As if to illustrate the enormous distance that separates Deniz’s position from that of Turna in 40 Square Metres of Germany, the opening of A Fine Day reprises the final sequence of Baúer’s film by showing the protagonist descending the stairwell of a tenement block. In both cases, as she walks out on to a sunlit street the camera remains behind focusing on the doorway and empty hallway. However, whereas in 40 Square Metres of Germany this signals the end of the film and thus we can only speculate as to whether Turna has truly been liberated from her claustrophobic marginal space, in Arslan’s film the next shot shows Deniz striding confidently through one of Kreuzberg’s parks on her way to the S-Bahn. She is returning to her own apartment which, as we learn much later, is located in Kochstrasse, a street formerly synonymous with Checkpoint Charlie. What had earlier symbolised stasis and the seemingly unbridgeable divide between two worlds, the political cultures of East and West, now becomes a space facilitating mobility and cultural exchange. As Georg Seeßlen has argued, it is not least by projecting such hopeful visions of ‘a more liberated society’ that this cinema acquires political significance: Directors like Thomas Arslan … have experienced both [Turkish and German] cultures and move as freely between them as possible…. The German-Turkish film is thereby an enrichment in terms of both dialogue between the cultures and the anticipation of a new culture of freedom (Seeßlen: 2000, 42).

References Adelson, Leslie A. ‘The Price of Feminism: Of Women and Turks’. Gender and Germanness: Cultural Productions of Nation. Ed. Patricia Herminghouse and Magda Mueller. Providence, RI and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997. 305-19. Akin, Fatih. ‘Liebe, Tod und Teufel – Im Gespräch: Der Regisseur Fatih Akin.’ Freitag (26 March 2004): 11.

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Arslan, Thomas. ‘Thomas Arslan über seinen Film: Auszüge aus einem Interview mit dem Regisseur von Der schöne Tag.’ http://www.zdf.de?ZDFde/inhalt/18/0,1872,2012818.html (accessed 28 March 2003). 1-2. Bax, Daniel. ‘Geschwister – Kardesler.’ http://home.t-online.de/home/ nor.lin/maxim/Archive/Thomas_arslan_4.html. (accessed 28 March 2003). 1-2. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Biondi, Franco and Rafik Schami. ‘Literatur der Betroffenen.’ Zu Hause in der Fremde: Ein bundesdeutsches Ausländer-Lesebuch. Ed. Christian Schaffernicht. Fischerhude: Atelier im Bauernhaus, 1981; Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1984. 136-50. Brauerhoch, Annette. ‘Die Heimat des Geschlechts – oder mit der fremden Geschichte die eigene erzählen: Zu Shirins Hochzeit von Helma Sanders-Brahms.’ Getürkte Bilder: Zur Inzsenierung von Fremden im Film. Ed. Ernst Karpf, Doron Kiesel and Karsten Visarius. Marburg: Schüren, 1995. 109-15. Brecht, Bertolt. ‘Der Naturalismus.’ Gesammelte Werke 16 (Schriften zum Theater 2). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1967. 514-20. Clarke, David. ‘In Search of Home: Filming Post-Unification Berlin.’ German Cinema since Unification: The New Germany in Context. Ed. David Clarke. London and New York: Continuum, 2006. 151-180. Dehn, Moritz. ‘Die Türken vom Dienst.’ Freitag (26 March 1999): 13. Fenner, Angelica. ‘Turkish Cinema in the New Europe: Visualising Ethnic Conflict in Sinan Çetin’s Berlin in Berlin.’ Camera Obscura 15.2 (2000): 105-48. French, Philip. ‘Fortune Favours the Brave.’ The Observer Review (24 February 2008), 16. Göktürk, Deniz. ‘Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema.’ Spaces in European Cinema. Ed. Myrto Konstantarakos. Exeter and Portland: intellect, 2000. 64-76. —. ‘Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema.’ The German Cinema Book. Ed. Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter and Deniz Göktürk. London: bfi, 2002. 248-56. Hake, Sabine. German National Cinema (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Hering, Tobias. ‘Irgendwo muss das Leben ja stattfinden.’ Freitag (23 November 2001): 48

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Jordan, Jim. ‘More than a Metaphor: The Passing of the Two Worlds Paradigm in German-Language Diasporic Literature.’ German Life and Letters 59.4 (2006): 488-99. Kelek, Necla. Die fremde Braut. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2005. Kuhn, Anna K. ‘Bourgeois Ideology and the (Mis)Reading of Günter Wallraff’s Ganz Unten.’ New German Critique 46 (1989): 191-202. Langwald, Dörte. ‘Gegen die Wand auf der Berlinale gefeiert.’ http://online.rp.de (accessed 12 February 2004). 1-2. Malik, Sarita. ‘Beyond “the Cinema of Duty”? The Pleasures of Hybridity: Black British Film of the 1980s and 1990s.’ Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema. Ed. Andrew Higson. London: Cassell, 1996. 202-15. Mennel, Barbara. ‘Bruce Lee in Kreuzberg and Scarface in Altona: Transnational Auteurism and Ghettocentrism in Thomas Arslan’s Brothers and Sisters and Fatih Akin’s Short Sharp Shock.’ New German Critique 87 (2002): 133-56. Naficy, Hamid. ‘Phobic Spaces and Liminal Panics: Independent Transnational Film Genre’. Global/Local: Cultural Productions and the Transnational Imaginary. Ed. Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996. 119-44. —. An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001. Özakin, Aysel. ‘Ali hinter den Spiegeln.’ Literatur Konkret 11 (1986): 69. Peitz, Christiane. ‘Überall ist es besser, wo wir nicht sind’, Tageszeitung (13 May 1994): 15-16. Pratt Ewing, Katherine. ‘Between Cinema and Social Work: Diasporic Turkish Women and the (Dis)Pleasures of Hybridity.’ Cultural Anthropology. 21.2 (2006): 265-94. Reinecke, Stefan. ‘Projektive Übermalungen: Zum Bild des Ausländers im Deutschen Film.’ ‘Getürkte Bilder’: Zur Inszenierung von Fremden im Film. Ed. Ernst Karpf, Doron Kiesel and Karsten Visarius. Marburg: Schüren, 1995. 9-15. Seeßlen, Georg. ‘Leben in zwei Kulturen.’ Kulturchronik 18:5 (2000): 3842. —. ‘Vertraute Fremde.’ Freitag (17 May 2002): 11-13. Suhr, Heidrun. ‘Ausländerliteratur: Minority Literature in the Federal Republic of Germany’, New German Critique 46 (1989): 71-103. Terkessidis, Mark. ‘Globale Kultur in Deutschland, oder: Wie unterdrückte Frauen und Kriminelle die Hybridität retten’, posted in the electronic journal parapluie (23 September 1999) http://parapluie.de.

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Teroaka, Arlene Akiko. ‘“Talking ‘Turk”: On Narrative Strategies and Cultural Stereotypes’, New German Critique 46 (1989): 104-28. Ulrich, Franz. ‘Parabel über eine Gettosituation – Interview mit Tevfik Baúer über 40 m² Deutschland.’ Zoom 38.17 (1986): 13-16. Weigel, Sigrid. ‘Literatur der Fremde – Literatur in der Fremde.’ Gegenwartsliteratur seit 1968. Ed. Klaus Briegleb and Sigrid Weigel. Munich: dtv, 1992. 189-229. Wingender, Christoph. ‘Berlin als Paradigma einer multikulturellen Werkstatt: Dialog auf primärer Ebene: Sinan Çetins Kinofilm Berlin in Berlin.’ Multikuluralität: Tendenzen, Probleme, Perspektiven im europäischen und internationalen Horizont. Ed. Michael Kessler and Jürgen Wertheimer. Tübingen: Stauffenberg Verlag, 1995. 165-75.

Film References 40 m² Deutschland (40 Square Metres of Germany), Tevfik Baúer (1986). Aprilkinder (April Children),Yüksel Yavuz (1998). Abschied vom falschen Paradies (Farewell to a False Paradise), Tevfik Baúer (1988). Anam – Meine Mutter (Anam – My Mother), Buket Alakus (2001). Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven), Fatih Akin (2007). Berlin in Berlin, Sinan Çetin (1993). Conte d’été (Summer’s Tale), Eric Rohmer (1996). Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, Fatih Akin (2005). Dealer, Thomas Arslan (1998). Der schöne Tag, Thomas Arslan (2000). Enter the Dragon, Robert Clouse (1973). Ganz unten (Lowest of the Low), Jörg Gfrörer (1986). Gegen die Wand (Head-On), Fatih Akin (2004). Geschwister – Kardesler (Brothers and Sisters), Thomas Arslan (1996). Ghettokids, Christian Wagner (2002). In der Fremde (When We Leave), Feo Aladag (2009). Im Juli (In July), Fatih Akin (2001). Kanak Attack, Lars Becker (2000). Kleine Freiheit (A Little Bit of Freedom), Yüksel Yavuz (2002). Knallhart (Hard Enough), Detlev Buck (2006). Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock), Fatih Akin (1997). Lebewohl, Fremde (Farewell, Stranger), Tevfik Baúer (1991). Lola + Bilidikid, Kutluƣ Ataman (1998). Scarface, Brian de Palma (1983). Shirins Hochzeit (Shirin’s Wedding), Helma Sanders-Brahms (1975).

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Solino, Fatih Akin (2002). Winterblume (Winter Flower), Kadir Sözen (1996). Yasemin, Hark Bohm (1988). Zwischen den Sternen (Between the Stars), Seyhan Derin (2001).

THE LIMITATION OF URBAN SPACE IN THOMAS ARSLAN’S BERLIN TRILOGY1 JESSICA GALLAGHER

German immigrant cinema of the 1970s and 1980s is often characterized by critics as the Gastarbeiterkino (e.g. Bühler 16; Dehn 3). The Gastarbeiterkino explored the lives of immigrants from a number of different national backgrounds, but a significant proportion of these films concentrated on the Turkish foreign workers who came to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. They were originally considered a temporary workforce that would eventually go home, but, as the Turkish-German poet and social commentator Zafer ùenocak remarks, “[w]hat at first appeared to be a harmless economic phenomenon soon developed into a momentous social phenomenon. The so-called guest workers violated the rules of hospitality, settled down, improved their economic status and became immigrants” (87). The Turkish- German Gastarbeiter films presented minority characters, in accordance with popular (mis)conceptions, as victims of incompatible “Turkish” and “German” ways of life. In many instances, this view was expressed by a concentration on the first generation and by spatial confinement – particularly of women, as seen in Tevfik Baser’s 40m² Deutschland (40m² of Germany, 1986). In this film, a young Turkish woman called Turna (Özay Fecht) is brought to Germany after an arranged marriage and promptly imprisoned by her husband Dursun (Yaman Okay) in their apartment. She has little opportunity for experiencing, much less integrating into, mainstream German society, and even when she escapes the confines of the apartment in the final scene, after Dursun dies, it is clear that she will remain in a marginalized position, owing to her status as an immigrant in Germany and her inability to communicate in this alien country. The few films that focussed on second-generation Turkish immigrants, for example Hark Bohm’s Yasemin (1988), intimated that integration into “mainstream” German 1 This article originally published in Seminar 42.3 (2006) and appears here with the permisson of the journal.

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society was possible only if the younger characters removed themselves completely from their parents’ (the first generation’s) culture and traditional beliefs. In the film, Yasemin (Ayse Romey), a second-generation immigrant, is initially positioned as an independent young woman who appears to navigate successfully between her positions both in mainstream German society and in the Turkish community. However, her hybrid identity is revealed as a fragile construct when tensions erupt in the family after her sister’s wedding and as her involvement with her German boyfriend Jan (Uwe Bohm) increases and Yasemin is forced to choose between her family’s more traditional (and patriarchal) beliefs and her desire for a “modern” German existence. Eventually, she flees with Jan, but in doing so she does not achieve any greater liberation or integration; rather, she moves from one authority (her father) to another (her boyfriend). Although the bulk of immigrant characters in these earlier TurkishGerman productions experienced severe spatial constraints, in recent years a number of Turkish-German films by a new generation of filmmakers have attempted to cast off the victim images common in earlier films by focussing more closely on the second generation and on outwardly more integrated characters. The leading characters in these newer productions, such as Fatih Akin’s Kurz und Schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock, 1998), Yüksel Yavuz’s Aprilkinder (April children, 1998), and Kutlug Ataman’s Lola und Bilidikid (Lola and Bilidikid,1999), are young and mobile and have made their way outside to more open spaces such as the street, the disco, and the park. Three productions that have also been conceived and analyzed in these terms are the films that constitute Thomas Arslan’s Berlin Trilogy – Geschwister-Kardesler (Brothers and Sisters, 1996), Dealer (1998), and Der schöne Tag (A Fine Day, 2000). With these films, Arslan professes to have dissociated his characters from previous cinematic portrayals of Turkish immigrants in Germany. When asked about the inspiration behind Geschwister, he stated he was “unzufrieden damit, wie Türken bisher in deutschen Filmen dargestellt werden. Das war einer der Gründe, diesen Film zu machen” (qtd. in Basrawi and Mentrup 2).2 Similarly, in relation to Dealer, Arslan has commented on his desire to challenge the negative discourse surrounding Turkish immigrants in Germany and suggested that, although it may not be possible to circumvent clichés completely, still:

2

He was “unsatisfied with how Turks had been portrayed in German film until now. That was one of the reasons to make this film.” (Unless otherwise stated, all translations from German-language sources are my own).

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[M]an kann vielleicht versuchen, durch sie hindurchzugehen, das heißt, von ihnen auszugehen, sie zu benutzen, um sie dann nach und nach aufzulösen, so daß anderes sichtbar werden kann. (qtd. in Dehn 2)3

In Der schöne Tag, Arslan believes he has distanced his characters once and for all from the popular social discourses and previous cinematic images that imagine second-generation Turkish immigrants as being trapped between two cultures. He maintains the main character, hat noch etwas anderes zu tun, als sich ständig mit ihrer Identität zu beschäftigen. Mir war es wichtig, sie nicht im Hinblick darauf zu definieren, was vermeintlich “fremd” an ihr ist. Die vielbeschworene Zerrissenheit zwischen zwei Kulturen entspricht nicht ihrer Lebenserfahrung. (qtd. in Seidel 5)4

Critics have identified shifts in the use of space in this new generation of films, including Arslan’s Berlin Trilogy, as paralleling shifts in the theoretical understanding of immigrant experience. For example, Deniz Göktürk sees the relocation of characters to exterior urban spaces and their increased mobility as signifying liberation and as corresponding with recent trends in theory that appreciate the immigrant as “no longer dwelling worlds apart,” but rather as “the modern metropolitan figure” who moves right at the centre of modernity (65). However, this article contends that the protagonists in at least the first two films of Arslan’s trilogy continue to struggle with the same or similar problems as their predecessors in the Gastarbeiterkino, in terms of the spaces available to them. Drawing on the writings of Michel de Certeau and Gilles Deleuze, this article examines the spaces assigned to individual characters and the significance of their movements in Geschwister and Dealer. It will also argue that, although Der schöne Tag presents a superficially more positive portrayal of the second-generation immigrant experience, the main character continues to struggle with her position in the urban exterior and is not as at ease with the city space as some critics have suggested. Geschwister follows the movements of three siblings, Erol (Tamer Yigit), Ahmed (Savas Yuderi), and Leyla (Serpil Turhan) and focuses on 3

“[O]ne can perhaps attempt to pass beyond them, that is to say, to try and use such images as the point of departure in order gradually to dismantle them in a way that something else becomes visible.” 4 He maintains that the main character “has other things to do than to constantly concern herself with her identity. It was important to me, not to define her in terms of what is supposedly ‘foreign’ about her. The much talked about notion of being torn between two cultures does not reflect her experience of life.”

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the differing ways in which each character tackles the subject of his or her cultural identity. The siblings live with their German-born mother (Hildegard Kuhlenberg) and Turkish-born father (Fazli Yurderi) in an apartment that subtle references in the mise en scène show to be in BerlinKreuzberg. The exterior space of Kreuzberg is central to the film and arguably a much different kind of space from that previously available to characters in the Turkish-German Gastarbeiter productions. Whereas in 40m² Deutschland and Yasemin minority “Turkish” and mainstream “German” spaces were presented as disconnected and kept largely separate, the urban space in Geschwister is depicted as being as much “non-German” as it is “German,” with Arslan continually highlighting the influence of the Turkish presence and culture on the contemporary Berlin cityscape. The siblings spend a great deal of time on the streets, and the film, as Barbara Mennel notes, “employs Kreuzberg as a locus marked by subway stations and city streets. The film consists primarily of protracted walks through this part of town” (143). Göktürk sees the film as signalling “a new mode of depicting immigrants and their hybrid offspring by following their diverging pathways through the neighbourhood, letting them drift along and casually observing their encounters in various ‘contact zones,’” and (as mentioned previously) she sees the shifts in the characters’ movements as agreeing with recent shifts in theory (65). While the fact that both male and female characters now more freely traverse the film’s urban space is undeniably a notable difference from earlier Turkish-German productions, not all theorists would necessarily agree that these exterior spaces automatically embody liberation from the constraints seen in the previous interior/ confined spaces. For de Certeau, walking involves a constant tension between self- definition and alienation: “To walk is to lack a place. It is the indefinite process of being absent and in search of a proper. The moving about that the city multiplies and concentrates makes the city itself an immense social experience of lacking a place” (103). Far from being liberating, urban space can in fact be a potential and actual site of conflict, where the ethnic suburbs prove just as restrictive as, and in many ways represent merely an extension of, the claustrophobic and controlling domestic spaces of the past. And this is certainly the case in Geschwister, in which the streets are as much, if not more, metaphors of confinement and control as they are of increased mobility or liberation. The urban space in Geschwister poses specific challenges for each of the siblings. Erol, the eldest, who has retained his Turkish citizenship and is far more involved in the Turkish community in Berlin than either of his siblings, is unemployed and has become involved in petty crime.

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Motivated by feelings of exclusion in both cultural and socio-economic terms from the dominant German societal norm, he is considering leaving Berlin and doing his compulsory military service in Turkey, a suggestion that is received with pride by his father but draws strong reservations from his mother and brother. With no job and no money, Erol spends the bulk of his time wandering through the streets of the suburb, often without any obvious purpose. The external street-space of Kreuzberg is the centre of his existence, and he possesses an intimate knowledge of the urban system, as is illustrated on a number of occasions when he ducks into alleyways and takes shortcuts to avoid visibility or evade people to whom he owes money. Thus he is now able to navigate what de Certeau describes as the urban “ensemble of interdictions” (walls, fences, etc.), which restrict freedom of movement, and the “ensemble of possibilities” (sidewalks, alleyways, etc.), which he actualizes in individualistic, and at times somewhat unconventional, ways (98). While Erol’s knowledge of the streetscape may be an attempt by Arslan to illustrate second-generation immigrants’ ability to maximize and appropriate the “possibilities” of the urban topography, the fact remains that Erol’s navigation of these “ensembles” is primarily about avoiding and protecting himself from the problems of the existence he has chosen, the worst of which is the danger of physical harm. Therefore, the street space seems primarily to be an expression of Erol’s exclusion from the space represented by mainstream German society. He is on the streets because he is not involved in work/training or education like his siblings, and his aimless wandering signifies his lack of place. He walks the streets because he feels he has nowhere to go, nowhere he belongs. Erol expresses these feelings of isolation and displacement in several conversations with Ahmed, most forcefully when Ahmed questions his thoughts of returning to Turkey, wondering: “Was willst du denn da?” and Erol asks three times: “Was soll ich denn hier?”5 Erol’s wheeling and dealing street existence condemns him to continual visibility and exposes him to danger not only from other criminals but also from racists, and he must therefore remain on the lookout for “lignes de fuite” (lines of flight) and “autonomous zones” (Deleuze and Guattari 204–05). The notion of “autonomous zones” was first elucidated by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus where, as Adrian Fielder remarks,

5 “What do you want to do there?” and Erol asks three times, “What am I doing here?”

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These “autonomous zones,” where Erol is able, at least temporarily, to avoid being located visually, appear in the form of the gym and the pool hall where he and his friends gather. However, as the film progresses, the mainstream’s rejection follows him into the “autonomous zones,” this time in the form of police surveillance, and he is forced back out onto the streets. In one scene, police enter a pool hall where Erol and his friends are socializing and, for no apparent reason apart from the characters’ ethnicity, demand IDs and search the youths. This confrontation, though for the most part non-violent, nevertheless results in the group returning to the streets and shortly thereafter becoming involved in an altercation with two Germans in camouflage trousers, presumably members of a neo-Nazi style gang. At the same time, the streets themselves prove more difficult for Erol to negotiate, as becomes evident when some of his creditors follow him into an alleyway and threaten him with violence if he does not pay back the money he owes them. Thus his “ensemble of possibilities” (de Certeau 98) for escape within the urban exterior has become significantly reduced. At the end of the film, it becomes clear that Erol has little choice but to leave Berlin in order to escape his creditors. The last the viewers see of him is at the airport, departing via the passport control. The actual journey to Turkey or what he encounters there is not shown. Ultimately, Erol is excluded from the exterior Turkish-German spaces, which scholars have identified as liberating, and from the mainstream German space through his departure for Turkey. The streets no longer provide sanctuary from his feelings of isolation and displacement. Erol seems to fit the description of de Certeau’s walkers: “Wandersmänner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of the urban text they write without being able to read it” (93). In contrast to Erol, Ahmed has German citizenship and is working towards his Abitur (university-entrance diploma). He has distanced himself somewhat from his Turkish background, as is evident in a number of scenes in which he expresses his preference for Germany and the German language and struggles to understand Erol’s decision to return to Turkey. Ahmed, though arguably the most integrated of the siblings in terms of educational opportunities and even physical appearance, is nevertheless not immune to Kreuzberg’s conflicts. He experiences the exterior urban spaces as sites of racist threat in general and of Erol’s Turkish-German conflicts in particular, and, while he repeatedly tries to

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avoid confrontations on the streets, he is generally unable to elude them. Thus when he attempts to stay out of the fight with the two Germans in camouflage trousers, Erol accuses him of being a coward and initiates an altercation with him. Similarly, when Erol becomes enraged by a pedestrian who inadvertently bumps into him, Ahmed has to step in and break up the fight and face Erol’s aggression. Like Erol, Ahmed too seeks the sanctuary of “autonomous zones” such as the pool hall and disco, but (again like Erol) he finds that these places offer only limited refuge from the disputes on the streets as he is forced back out into them. As a result, Ahmed attempts to avoid conflict by staying off the streets, preferring instead his girlfriend’s apartment (another “autonomous zone”) or the suspended animation of the U-Bahn, which he uses as an alternative means of navigating the city. Erol criticizes Ahmed’s pacific attitude, stating: “Du versuchst dich aus allem raus zu halten, aber damit kommst du nicht durch,” and he advises Ahmed to take up martial arts because violence on the streets is unavoidable.6 Ultimately, Ahmed would rather be at home reading a book, and his interest in his studies may indicate a desire to find a way out of his marginalized suburb and an understanding that education could well be the best way. In his final scene, Ahmed withdraws from the exterior space completely and retreats into the domestic space of the family’s apartment, where he sits reading, well away from the window, which overlooks the street below. This withdrawal from the exterior spaces may prefigure integration into the mainstream space through education. For Leyla, the youngest child, who, as a young woman, is perhaps the nearest successor to the main characters in films like 40m² Deutschland and Yasemin, the streets represent a temporary escape from her claustrophobic interior spaces – the family’s apartment and her workplace in a clothing factory. She remarks about the confrontational nature of the family’s home to her friend Sevim (Mariam El Awad): “Bei uns gibt es immer irgendeine Streiterei. Entweder streiten sich meine Brüder, oder mein Vater macht voll den Stress.”7 The comment highlights two issues central to the construction of Leyla’s character and identity and provides insight into the possible limitations on her accessing certain spaces – her brothers are fighting because of their negative attitudes towards their cultural affiliations and their negative experiences with the urban space of Kreuzberg, and her father is continually trying to impose his patriarchal traditions and outlook on her. She wants to move out and talks with Sevim 6

“You try to stay out of everything, but you won’t get by like that.” “At our place, there is always some kind of bickering. Either my brothers are fighting or my father is creating total stress.”

7

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about finding an apartment together. Until such time, Leyla and Sevim take to the streets and move through the film’s urban space with confidence. Göktürk describes one of their scenes as: “Two girls walk[ing] along a street, facing the camera, smiling at each other [...]. The place is Berlin-Kreuzberg, and the two girls in motion seem very much in place on this street” (64). However, Leyla’s movements are restricted to the filmic space of Kreuzberg, and the full extent of her liberation remains unclear. This is brought to the viewers’ attention when she asks her father for permission to go to Hamburg for the weekend. Her request is immediately dismissed, with her father stating: “Kommt gar nicht in Frage,” with the aim of safeguarding her sexual modesty.8 When Leyla attempts to protest and demand a degree of autonomy (“Mit dir kann man gar nicht reden”), her father slaps her twice, and the audience witnesses his regression into the kind of aggressive patriarch who was characteristic of earlier TurkishGerman productions, such as Yasemin.9 While Leyla may appear to have greater freedom of movement, the fact remains that when she attempts to leave the streets of the “ethnic” suburb she suffers the same restrictions as her predecessors in the Gastarbeiterkino. Thus for Leyla the urban exterior of Kreuzberg represents an extension of the domestic space, from which she repeatedly tries, and will continue to have to try, to escape. As the film concludes with a final image of Leyla walking the streets, it appears likely, as Mennel notes, that though “Erol has left for Turkey and [...] Ahmed will have the potential to leave Kreuzberg with a high school degree [...], Leyla will remain in Kreuzberg as a seamstress” (146). There is no doubt that the depiction of Berlin in Geschwister as an increasingly multiethnic if not multicultural metropolis constitutes a positive modification of the enclosed and hostile cinematic space reserved for immigrant characters in the past. Arslan continually highlights the impact and influence of immigration, particularly of Turkish immigrants, on the contemporary Berlin cityscape. Examples in the mise en scène are numerous. As Ahmed boards the underground train at Cottbusser Tor, lively Turkish voices can be heard in the background. When he gets off the train and stops at a newsstand, the camera shows a large selection of Turkish- language newspapers and magazines; no German titles are visible. On Berlin’s busy streets, Erol and Ahmed pass by a number of Turkish fast-food locales and bars from which Turkish music is clearly emanating. Later in the film, as Ahmed makes his way home through the hustle and bustle of the city, the camera focuses for a long time on the 8 9

“Out of the question.” “It’s impossible to talk to you.”

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signs “Lezzel Grill” and “Baghdad 2,” which are attached to an overpass. These images articulate the process of the cultural evolution and reterritorialisation of Germany’s urban spaces through the Turkish culture and Germany’s other ethnic communities and are perhaps an attempt by the director to emphasize the increasingly multiethnic nature of Germany’s capital. Evidence of this intent is also provided during a conversation between Erol and two of his friends, when, in trying to determine the nationality of two men whom the trio encounter briefly on the street and assume are migrants, they list off a number of possibilities, including Greek, Italian, Albanian, Yugoslav, as well as Turkish. Thus the conversation alludes to the complicated mix of nationalities and ethnicities that now make up the social landscape of Germany’s capital. However, if the characters are largely restricted to the “ethnic” suburbs of the city, where the streets are staged as sites of imminent conflict circumscribed by mechanisms of territorial control, the question arises as to whether the spatial offerings in the film are as liberating as some have suggested. The final images of the film appear to support the conclusion that the “ethnic” suburb presents in many ways a contemporary extension of the regressive and violent interior spaces seen in earlier TurkishGerman films. Erol believes his only option is to return to Turkey, as the streets appear to have closed in around him, placing him under escalating surveillance and threat, and no other place in German society seems available to him. Similarly, the final scene depicts Ahmed as seeking shelter inside, with Leyla once again walking the streets of the suburb she is simply not permitted to leave. Drawing on the writings of de Certeau, Fielder describes the city as “a zone of cultural conflict whose individual citizens inhabit a textual system of which they themselves are not the authors” (272). This premise seems particularly relevant when considering the filmic space assigned to the second-generation characters of Geschwister. Though their movements may display an attempt to reappropriate the German urban exterior, these movements are consistently subject to regulation and constraint by others. Arslan’s next film, Dealer, pursues one possible outcome resulting from the identity types depicted in Geschwister. The film is not a direct continuation of the narrative and characters constructed in Geschwister but, as the director has remarked, “ein Weiterarbeiten an einem verwandten thematischen Feld” (qtd. in Seeßlen 4).10 The film revolves primarily around a young Turkish-German man called Can. Can is similar to Erol because he is based in Kreuzberg (and perhaps also because he is played 10

“[A] continued work on a related thematic field.”

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by the same actor, Tamer Yigit). Also, he is an extension of Erol because, as a low-level drug runner openly involved in serious criminality, he is distanced even further from mainstream society. The film takes up a number of issues raised in Geschwister, such as the cinematic representation of space and the construction of individual identity, and develops them through the experiences of a new character. Dealer was generally well received by both domestic and international audiences and critics, winning a FIPRESCI (International Film Critics Association) prize at the forty-ninth Berlin Film Festival, and the majority of reviewers have praised the film as a positive departure from other Turkish-German productions, both past and present. For example, Sophia Matenaar suggests that “angesichts [...] deutschtürkischer Jungfilmer,” one is grateful in Dealer vor allem für all das [...], was nicht vorkommt. Kein Ghettotourismus. Keine Kulturkonfliktfolklore. Keine Taxifahrer, keine Popmüzik, keine Hochzeitsschalmeien, kein Bildergewakkel, keine falsch untertitelten türkischen Flüche.11

According to Moritz Dehn, the film differs not only from other recent Turkish-German films but also from the Gastarbeiterkino of the 1970s and 1980s, which presented “düstere, traurige Blicke auf die fremde Kultur” with Turkish characters who live “weitgehend in ihrer geschlossenen Gesellschaft, tyrannisieren ihre Frauen, verteidigen ihre männliche Ehre und bleiben archaischen Ritualen verhaftet” (2).12 In contrast, he suggests that with this film Arslan “versucht [...] weitgehend auf folklorische Details und die Problematisierung von ‘Fremdartigkeit’ zu verzichten. Der türkische Dönerverkäufer, der Straßenkehrer fehlen ebenso wie die Darstellung von Generations-, und Traditionskonflikten” (2).13 However, a closer analysis of Dealer challenges this positive reception, suggesting that the film continues to position Turkish-German characters on the margins of society, where they have limited freedom of 11

“[I]n light of the young Turkish-German filmmakers” one is grateful in Dealer “for everything that does not appear. No Ghettotourism. No folklore about the conflict between cultures. No taxi drivers, no pop music, no traditional wedding music, no wobbly images, no incorrectly subtitled Turkish cursing.” 12 [W]hich presented “dark, woeful glimpses of the foreign culture” with Turkish characters who live “largely in their closed society, bully their wives, defend their male honour and remain captive to archaic rituals.” 13 Arslan “tries [...] largely to dispense with folkloric details and the problematization of ‘strangeness’. The Turkish kebab seller, the street sweepers are absent, as is the depiction of generational and tradition conflicts.”

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movement and are under continual surveillance. A comparative analysis with Geschwister indicates that the space that Dealer assigns to individual characters is even more limited than in the previous film and that this space provides great insight into the success of the identities or clichés lived by the individual characters and, by extension, into the characters’ probable success within German society. In Dealer, Arslan’s characters are restricted to a limited number of disconnected and largely featureless urban locations, such as the run-down industrial site and the dark entryway of an old and crumbling building where the viewers are introduced to the bulk of the second-generation immigrant youth in an early scene and where the majority of these characters are positioned for the entire film. The process of walking about the city with at least the possibility of negotiating and appropriating the topographical system, which viewers may have witnessed in Geschwister, is no longer evident in Dealer. Whereas Arslan’s siblings were constantly on the move, Can is for the most part static, restricted to the kind of “anyspaces-whatever” that Deleuze identified as typical of European cities after 1945, as spaces which we no longer know how to describe [...], deserted but inhabited, disused warehouses, waste ground, cities in the course of demolition or reconstruction. And in these any-spaces-whatever a new race of characters was stirring, kind of mutant: they saw rather than acted, they were seers. (xi)

Drawing on Deleuze’s writings, Laura Marks argues that “‘the new race [...] kind of mutant’ to which Deleuze refers [...] describes the very real conditions of migration, diaspora, and hybridity that characterize the new populations of Europe and North America” (27). Thus, these “anyspaces-whatever” are not only useful in describing postmodern urban spaces, but are also symptomatic of the impact of migration on many Western metropolises. In postunification and postmodern Berlin, a city in which demolition and reconstruction are perpetual and which is home to the largest immigrant communities in Germany, Dealer narrows its scope to a small number of emptied or abandoned “any-spaces-whatever,” which appear in the form of littered streets and the vacant courtyards and alleyways between residential blocks where Can and his associates are, to borrow a term from Kevin Robins, the “‘have-nots’ in the abandoned zones of the city” (323). Thus, the capital is reduced essentially to a small number of marginalized sites of socio-economic exclusion. With nowhere else to go, Can finds his movements limited to detached spaces, and even in these he

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is repeatedly positioned with his back to wire fences and cement walls, presenting a continual reminder of his ongoing exclusion. In one of the opening scenes, for example, the viewers’ attention is drawn to a wiredup, opaque window through which the silhouettes of two people can be seen. After what appears to be a brief discussion, the two move momentarily inside the doorway of a residential block to conduct their business. Here, it becomes evident that the dealer is the protagonist, Can. After the exchange, he returns immediately to the street, where he is subsequently shown standing silently with his back to a cement wall, slightly away from the other dealers. The camera remains at a distance, as if to reinforce detachment from the characters presented on screen. The seemingly impermeable barriers against which Can is continually framed not only articulate the restriction of his movements to a limited number of “any-spaces-whatever,” but also present clear visual indications of both his constant confinement and his impending actual imprisonment. As in Geschwister, the protagonist’s mobility and experience of urban space in Dealer provide insight into his motivations and affiliations and his position in and relationship to the postmodern urban hierarchy. However, the image and spatial negotiation of Berlin in Dealer are significantly different from those presented in the previous film. If the street is staged as a site of conflict in Geschwister, then it is reduced effectively to a prison in Dealer. As Merten Worthmann notes: “Can ist ein Gefangener, lange bevor er im Gefängnis steckt” (“Der Weg” 18).14 Can’s movements are monitored constantly by police, his criminal boss Hakan (Hussi Kutlucan), other dealers and addicts, and any attempt to flee the watchful eye of the city’s surveillance is reprimanded. This is illustrated when he tries to spend some time alone with his daughter, and Hakan berates him for not being locatable at all times, remarking: “Der verlorene Sohn ist wieder da. Wo hast du gesteckt? Ich habe zweimal versucht, dich anzurufen.”15 Later, Hakan, on the basis of reports he has received from some of the other dealers, accuses him of working with the police. Unlike Geschwister, there is no longer the option of seeking refuge in “autonomous zones.” Whenever Can attempts to leave the streets he is expelled almost immediately and forced back into the urban exterior. Thus, when he enters a disco looking for possible clients, he is promptly spotted by police and taken outside into the streets, where he is roughly searched and then arrested. Although his exclusion from this particular interior space is perhaps hardly surprising – he is, after all, a dealer, and as 14

“Can is a prisoner long before he is actually in prison” “The prodigal son has returned. Where have you been? I’ve tried to call you twice.” 15

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such his exclusion from public or mainstream spaces such as the disco is to be expected – he is also and unexpectedly excluded from more marginalized spaces. Early in the film, when, in order to conduct business, Can moves inside a residential building in what appears to be an “ethnic” suburb, he is pushed back outside by a female resident who first curses him in Turkish and then threatens: “Wenn ich dich nochmals hier sehe, rufe ich die Polizei.”16 Moreover, his own domestic space provides little relief and is presented as stifling and confrontational, as his relationship with his girlfriend Jale (Idil Üner) deteriorates. The two quarrel constantly about his occupation; in fact, there are very few scenes shared by the two when they are not arguing about Can’s inability or refusal to seek alternative, legitimate employment. As a result, he tends to avoid his home, opting instead for the streets. Ultimately, he is excluded from all spaces mainstream and marginal, surveilled and unsurveilled. Towards the end of the film, Can’s experience of the urban space seems to shift from exclusion to containment. He is kept under continual surveillance and prevented from leaving the urban exterior. He himself refers to the impossibility of leaving Berlin after Hakan is murdered. Realizing that Hakan’s promise of advancement by managing a bar has died along with him, Can makes a futile attempt to get off the streets for good by accepting a job as a kitchen hand for a Turkish restaurateur. His work in the restaurant indicates that he is not as far removed from the clichéd Turkish Dönerverkäufer (kebab seller) as some have suggested. However, the interior space proves claustrophobic, and, as Georg Seeßlen comments, “die Tätigkeit als Küchenhilfe erscheint ihm so entwürdigend, dass er sehr schnell wieder da ist, wo er nicht mehr hinwollte: auf der Straße” (4).17 Having not seen him for a while, one of the other young Turkish-German dealers comments: “Ich dachte, du wärst nicht mehr in der Stadt.”18 Can replies: “Warum soll ich nicht in der Stadt sein, wo soll ich hin, du Idiot,” in a remark strongly reminiscent of Erol’s: “Was soll ich denn hier,” which underlined that character’s feelings of social exclusion and isolation.19 Confined to the peripheral spaces of the urban landscape, Can remains largely static and watches the city that watches him. He becomes one of 16

“If I see you here again, I’ll call the police.” Georg Seeßlen comments, “the work as a kitchen helper seems so degrading to him that he is very quickly back there, where he had no longer wanted to go - on the street.” 18 “I thought you weren’t in the city anymore.” 19 “Why wouldn’t I be in the city, where would I go, you idiot? […] What am I doing here?” 17

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Deleuze’s “seers,” ever observing but unable to act. For in the “anyspaces-whatever” from which Can cannot escape, situations no longer extend into action or reaction [...]. These are pure optical and sound situations, in which the character does not know how to respond, abandoned spaces in which he ceases to experience [...], vaguely indifferent to what happens to him, undecided as to what must be done. (Deleuze 272)

He watches as Hakan is murdered, watches as some of the other dealers beat up an addict with whom he has established a tenuous relationship, and at night he watches silently as the traffic with its bright lights drives off into the distance, leaving him behind. Though he expresses a desire to change his life – “Ich wollte mein Leben ändern, aber wusste nicht wie” – it is clear that he will remain a prisoner of the city, of the banal emptied spaces.20 As Helga Fitzner remarks: “Die Kraftlosigkeit und Unentschlossenheit, sich aus dem Dealer-Milieu zu befreien, gleicht in diesem Sinne [...] doch dem inneren Gefängnis [...], und Can endet folglich in einem realen Gefängnis, einer Justizvollzugsanstalt” (2).21 At the end of the film, after Can has been arrested and sits alone in prison, in his final comment as intermittent narrator he remarks: “Seltsam, wie sich alles ändert.”22 This remark is significant for a number of reasons. When Can originally speaks of finding change, his words suggest that he still has some control over that change and the events of his life, but now his comment indicates that the changes have occurred independently of him. The irony of this final remark is also amplified as images of the disconnected everyday spaces lived in by Can are displayed one by one, as if reunited, and eventually blend into a black surface on the screen before the final credits begin to roll. The park, the doorway, the abandoned industrial site, the kitchen, and the crowded residential blocks – all held Can prisoner long before the state institution did. In reality nothing has changed for Can. The barred window in his cell is not unlike the window against which he was framed in one of the initial scenes. The institutional prison where he now finds himself is not vastly different from the urban prison where he has been trapped throughout the film and probably for his entire life.

20

“I wanted to change my life, but didn’t know how.” “The weakness and indecision to free himself from the dealer milieu resembles in this sense [...] an inner prison [...], and consequently, Can ends up in a real prison, a correctional institution.” 22 “Strange how everything changes.” 21

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Can’s girlfriend, Jale, who has received almost no critical or scholarly attention, fares little better than Can in terms of the space accessible to her. Despite being portrayed as a relatively liberated young woman, having partly escaped the kind of familial pressures experienced by Leyla in Geschwister, Jale nevertheless continues, like her predecessors from the 1970s and 1980s, to be restricted to interior/enclosed spaces. In the majority of her scenes, she is depicted at home with her daughter. Though she is employed, the viewers are not privy to her movements to and from work. Instead, she is simply pictured at work, standing behind a small counter with her back to a wall and a descending escalator. Similarly, in the only scene where Jale is shown outdoors, she is framed front on, in close-up, standing with her back to a brick wall watching her daughter ride her bike among building rubble. The limited urban space available to Jale suggests that her own “any-spaces-whatever” are not so far removed from the restrictive and claustrophobic spaces experienced by earlier female characters in the Turkish-German Gastarbeiterkino. In Geschwister, though the streets prove at times hazardous, Arslan’s siblings are nevertheless able to manoeuvre around various exterior and interior spaces. Their wanderings present different ways of viewing the German capital and express, although not always entirely successfully or auspiciously, at least the possibility of appropriating or reterritorializing the “ethnic” suburb and by extension the wider urban topography. In Dealer, the “ethnic” suburb is bare, with little evidence of the impact or acceptance of Turkish culture in German society or any real indication of mutual cultural exchange. There is none of the signposting seen in the previous film, such as the Turkish newspapers, signs, music, and voices that emphasize the presence of residents of Turkish origin in the city. Instead, the urban imagery is limited to empty, dehumanizing places where characters are trapped, unable to respond, unsure of how to leave. The protagonist, like the bulk of the Turkish- German characters in the film, frequents only the forgotten, superfluous spaces of the city along with the addicts and prostitutes. They are confined within Berlin’s “anyspaces-whatever,” with very little chance of escaping marginality. The final film in the Berlin Trilogy, Der schöne Tag, focuses on the movements and relationships of a young Turkish-German actress, Deniz (Serpil Turhan). The film depicts a day in her life, accompanying her as she makes her way around Berlin. Arslan has highlighted the film’s shift to the female perspective, after his concentration largely on young male characters earlier in the trilogy, stating: Nach Geschwister und Dealer, die eher von männlichen Protagonisten dominiert waren, hat es mich diesmal mehr interessiert, die Geschichte

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Jessica Gallagher einer weiblichen Figur zu erzählen. Einer jungen Frau, die einen Beruf hat und die sich Fragen über ihr Leben stellt. (qtd. in Seidel 3)23

Like Dealer, Der schöne Tag represents an extension of an earlier film by exploring a particular identity type offered in Geschwister. Deniz is positioned as a more matured and integrated version of Leyla and to some extent of Jale. She lives alone, works as an actress, and is pondering the direction of her life in terms of her relationships and career. The connection between the trilogy’s female characters is emphasized through the shared ambitions and desired lifestyle choices of the three women as well as through the casting of Serpil Turhan (who played Leyla in Geschwister) as Deniz. Like Arslan, Simon Rothöhler contends that the film extends the discussion on second-generation Turkish youth in Berlin previously established in Geschwister and Dealer: Die ersten beiden Teile [...] spielten beinahe ausschließlich in Kreuzberg und waren auf männliche Figuren konzentriert. Dieser Rahmen wird in Der schöne Tag erweitert, geografisch und perspektivisch, und komplettiert Arslans Angebot an Beschreibungen dieser Lebenswelt. (1)24

The fact that Deniz has middle-class employment, lives in her own apartment, and more freely traverses the urban topography of Berlin might invite critics and viewers to conclude that she has dissociated herself from Arslan’s earlier characters. However, while the film may have extended its geographical setting and lifestyle choices on offer to Deniz, there is considerable evidence that she is disengaged and dissatisfied and thus shares a number of similarities with the main protagonists from the trilogy’s first two films. After presenting Berlin largely from the standpoint of one of its “ethnic” suburbs in Geschwister and then reducing the city even further to a small number of anonymous, abandoned sites in Dealer, Arslan offers a different view of the city in Der schöne Tag. The spatial possibilities have been broadened for Deniz, as is evident from the film’s initial scene, when the first images displayed are the wide, blue sky followed by an open door 23

“After Geschwister and Dealer, which were dominated mostly by male protagonists, I was interested this time in telling the story of a female figure. A young woman, who has a career and who asks questions about her life.” 24 “The first two films [...] played out almost exclusively in Kreuzberg and were focused on male characters. This framework is extended in Der schöne Tag, geographically and perspectively, and completes the range of Arslan's descriptions about this environment.”

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and window. Almost immediately after viewers are introduced to Deniz, she is on the move, exiting the interior, domestic space of her boyfriend’s apartment for the street. Much of the film’s trajectory is based around Deniz’s travels through the city, as she goes to work or visits her mother or meets with her sister. As Worthmann aptly notes: “Deniz fährt S- und U- Bahn, Taxi, und immer wieder geht sie zu Fuß durch die Stadt, durchquert Parks, wartet auf Bahnsteigen, läuft Straßen entlang und auf einen See zu” (“Immer” 1).25 Whereas Leyla’s movements were controlled largely by her father and Jale was framed almost entirely in interior, domestic spaces, Deniz is constantly out and about and is able to move freely amongst a number of different zones in the city. Through her travels, Berlin is depicted as more fluid and connected than in the previous two films and much less a site of overt conflict or confrontation. However, when Deniz walks through the city, she does so with a kind of apprehensive determination and intensity, often without an obvious destination, and rarely with an obvious purpose. Her wanderings appear to reflect an inner unrest and a search for something undefined. Worthmann likens Deniz’s movements through Berlin to flânerie, but he simultaneously acknowledges that “[s]ie wirkt weich, ein wenig schlafwandlerisch” (“Immer” 1).26 He then goes on to state that Deniz “bewegt sich [...] wie eine Bresson-Figur von Station zu Station, leicht abwesend als ein Mensch, dessen Wege kaum vom eigenen Willen abhängen” (“Immer” 2).27 Kerstin Decker’s view may in fact be more apposite: “Alles in ihr ist Aufbruch, doch bleibt sie seltsam ziellos” (15).28 This premise is supported by Deniz’s sister’s comment: “Du bist ständig auf der Suche. [...] Versuch mal zur Ruhe zu kommen.”29 Deniz is continually present in the urban exterior, and yet in many ways she appears to try to disengage herself. The fact that she is asking questions about her life, as Arslan himself has indicated, may indicate that she is not only discontented but that she is also unsure of where to turn and what she is looking for, as is reflected in her sister’s comment and critics’ observations. Whereas the siblings in Geschwister were inextricably caught up in the tension, confusion, and conflict of the city, Deniz remains 25

“Deniz travels by tram, underground train, taxi, and she repeatedly walks through the city, crossing parks, waiting on train station platforms, walking along the streets towards a lake.” 26 “She seems mild, a little somnambulistic” 27 Deniz “moves [...] like a-Bresson-figure from station to station, slightly absent as a person, whose paths depend little on individual will.” 28 “Everything in her is departure, but she remains strangely aimless” 29 “You’re constantly on the search for something […] Try to find some peace.”

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detached, preferring instead quiet contemplation, perhaps as a means of avoiding the urban turmoil and her inner unrest. She is withdrawn from the city that surrounds her and continually seeks places of solitude, such as the lake and the Tiergarten. Despite this preference for more open natural spaces, Deniz is reluctant, if not unable, to leave the city, in much the same way as Can and the siblings. She alludes to this apprehension about leaving the city during a conversation with Diego (Bilge Bingul), a young man whom she encounters on various occasions throughout the day: “Ich weiß, dass es sich blöd anhört, aber ich verreise nicht gern [...]. Ich fühle mich nicht wohl an Orten, die ich nicht kenne. Ich vermisse sehr schnell meine Freunde, und außerdem habe ich schreckliche Angst vorm Fliegen.”30 While the majority of recent Turkish-German films have shifted their focus to the second generation, it appears that, in many instances, this new generation of characters continues to struggle with the same kinds of spatial limitations as their predecessors. Rather than finding liberation through greater mobility and access to external spaces, the youth in Thomas Arslan’s Geschwister and Dealer continue to suffer from constant regulation and surveillance not only by mechanisms of German society, but also by familial and cultural controls. The urban space available to characters in the two films is depicted as a potential and actual site of conflict, with the streets presented more as metaphors of confinement and control than they are of any increased mobility or liberation. In Der schöne Tag, Deniz is able to traverse a number of zones of the city and appears to enjoy a mobility that seemed previously impossible for Turkish-German youth, particularly the young women. However, her travels are often without purpose and she is disturbingly reminiscent of Erol, whose movements through Kreuzberg were a reflection of his isolation and feelings of alienation. Deniz’s wanderings seem primarily to emphasize her detachment and indecision and perhaps to indicate a fear of what might happen should she stop.

30

“I know it sounds silly, but I don’t like to travel [...]. I don’t feel comfortable in places that I don’t know. I miss my friends very quickly, and besides, I'm terrified of flying.”

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Works Cited Akin, Fatih, dir. Kurz und Schmerzlos. Perf. Adam Bousdoukos, Mehmet Kurtulus, and Aleksandar Jovanovic. Screenplay by Fatih Akin. Wüste Film. 1998. Arslan, Thomas, dir. Dealer. Perf. Tamer Yigit and Idil Üner. Screenplay by Thomas Arslan. Trans-Film Vertrieb. 1998. —. dir. Geschwister-Kardesler. Perf. Tamer Yigit, Savas Yuderi, and Serpil Turhan. Screenplay by Thomas Arslan. Trans-Film Vertrieb. 1996. —. dir. Der schöne Tag. Perf. Serpil Turhan and Bilge Bingul. Screenplay by Thomas Arslan. Trans-Film Vertrieb. 2000. Ataman, Kultug, dir. Lola und Bilidikid. Perf. Baki Davrak, Gandi Mukli, and Erdal Yildiz. Screenplay by Kultug Ataman. Martin Hagemann. 1999. Baser, Tevfik, dir. 40m² Deutschland. Perf. Özay Fecht and Yaman Okay. Screenplay by Tevik Baser. Tevfik Baser/Studio Hamburg. 1986. Basrawi, Claudia, and Mario Mentrup. “Slacking am Kotti.” Jungle World 1998: 1–3. 19 May 2005 . Bohm, Hark, dir. Yasemin. Perf. Ayse Romey and Uwe Bohm. Screenplay by Hark Bohm. Hamburger Kino Kompanie. 1988. Bühler, Philipp. “Der glorreiche Kanakster.” Berliner Zeitung 18 Nov. 2000: 16. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984. Decker, Kerstin. “Sie läuft und läuft und läuft.” Der Tagesspiegel 23 Oct. 2001: 15. Dehn, Moritz. “Die Türken vom Dienst.” Freitag 26 Mar. 1999: 1–3. 18 May 2005 . Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time Image. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1989. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Fielder, Adrian. “Poaching on Public Space: Urban Autonomous Zones in French Banlieue Films.” Cinema and the City. Ed. Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 270-81. Fitzner, Helga. “Reihe Türkischer Film.” Kultura Extra Nov. 2003: 1–5. 18 May 2005 .

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Göktürk, Deniz. “Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema.” Spaces in European Cinema. Ed. Myrto Konstantarakos. Exeter: Intellect Books, 2000. 64–75. Marks, Laura. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Durham: Duke UP, 2000. Matenaar, Sophia. “Verdacht auf Dummheit.” Berliner Zeitung 18 Mar. 1999: K7. Mennel, Barbara. “Bruce Lee in Kreuzberg and Scarface in Altona: Transnational Auteurism and Ghettocentrism in Thomas Arslan’s Brothers and Sisters and Fatih Akin’s Short Sharp Shock.” New German Critique 87 (2002): 133–56. Robins, Kevin. “Prisoners of the City: Whatever Could a Postmodern City Be?” Space and Place: Theories of Identity and Location. Ed. Erica Carter, James Donald, and Judith Squires. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993. 303–30. Rothöhler, Simon. “Liebeskrank in Kreuzberg.” Wortlaut.de 22. Oct. 2001: 1–3. 18 May 2005 . Seeßlen, Georg. “Vertraute Fremde: Im Niemandsland der Kulturen.” Freitag 17 May 2002: 1–5. 18 May 2005 . Seidel, Gisela. “Interview mit Thomas Arslan.” Der schöne Tag – ein Film von Thomas Arslan. 18 May 2005 . ùenocak, Zafer. Atlas of a Tropical Germany: Essays on Politics and Culture. Trans. Leslie A. Adelson. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2000. Worthmann, Merten. “Der Weg nach unten.” Berliner Zeitung 12 Feb. 1999: 18. —. “Immer auf dem Sprung.” Die Zeit. 18 May 2005 . Yavuz, Yüksel, dir. Aprilkinder. Perf. Erdal Yildiz and Inga Busch. Screenplay by Britta Ohm, Henner Wincklert, and Yüksel Yavuz. Zero Film. 1999.

THE BLACK HUMOR WORLD OF MIGRANTS CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO CULTURES: SPACE, IDENTITY AND BELONGING IN TUNÇ OKAN’S CINEMA SENEM DURUEL ERKILIÇ AND HAKAN ERKILIÇ

I. Tunç Okan and his films Otobüs (The Bus, 1976), Cumartesi Cumartesi (Saturday Saturday, 1984) and Fikrimin ønce Gülü Sar Mercedes (Mercedes Mon Amour-Yellow Mercedes, 1992) have a different place in Turkish cinema as well as in migrant cinema. Tunç Okan’s cinema, in his own words, is an “observational cinema” and his films are migrant films caught between two cultures. (Ayça, 1985: 14-16). It is impossible to define the place of Okan’s films in Turkish cinema. His migrant films and his filmmaking style give him a distinctive position. Furthermore, he had not been able to establish a bond with Turkish cinema when he worked briefly as an actor, and his migration adventure, in a way, had accelerated his filmmaking period (Ayça, 1985: 14). Ulusay (2008: 164) states that Tunç Okan is among the directors who have created the first examples of Turkish migrant cinema and he cites Okan’s name with Ayten Kuyululu and Tevfik Baúer. Tunç Okan has made Otobüs, Cumartesi Cumartesi, Fikrimin ønce Gülü-Sar Mercedes at intervals and in a long period of time. These films are complementary and they present the migrant’s cycle in the context of themes of migration to a foreign land, visiting abroad and returning to the homeland/home. The migrants’ encounter with an advanced capitalist country is told in Otobüs; Cumartesi Cumartesi is about the life of the ones who have managed to exist in such a world and have adapted to it; Fikrimin ønce Gülü deals with the migrants’ return to the homeland after having saved enough money. In Otobüs, nine illegal Turkish migrants come to Stockholm on a shabby bus. The bus driver who has taken them to

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Stockholm is a Turkish con man who swindles them out of their money and passports. He leaves them on one of the city squares where parking is prohibited and he parts from them with some excuse about their passport operations. The migrants are almost imprisoned inside the bus and the only relationship they could have with their environment is observing this foreign culture through the bus curtains. Some of their basic needs like food and the toilet force them to get off the bus at midnight. One of them gets lost after leaving his friends and because he stays outside all night long, he freezes to death. Another one attracts attention by jumping on the food at a party to which a homosexual has taken him and he is beaten to death. The others are caught by the police. In Cumartesi Cumartesi, the consumer society, a result of capitalism, is portrayed through a weekend spent by a Turkish couple who have adapted to the society and achieved a certain income. Fikrimin ønce Gülü Yellow Mercedes depicts the return of Bayram, a street sweeper in Germany, to his homeland after having bought the car of his childhood dreams. For Bayram, Yellow Mercedes is not only a car, but also a friend, a lover, a confidant and he calls it as Balkz. Through flashbacks during his journey, we learn more about Bayram’s childhood, his lover Kezban and his betrayal to his friend when he went to Germany. Balkz has come from Germany to Turkey without having any accidents but it goes through some accidents in Turkey. In the end, it turns out that Bayram does not even have a village he can go to. In this paper, the representation of migration/migrant phenomenon in Tunç Okan’s cinema will be analyzed through all three films, but Otobüs and Fikrimin ønce Gülü will be discussed more thoroughly. These analyses will be structured on the concepts of migration, identity, belonging, xenophobia, subaltern, migrant cinema, road films and the automobile metaphor that has an important place in Tunç Okan’s cinema. Two different societies, cultures that have become a current issue due to the relationship between migration and migrant, and the cultural shock, identity and belonging issues caused by the conflict between traditionalmodern structures also provide a productive area for black humor. In this sense, it will be emphasized that Tunç Okan’s cinema is heavily based on this area and that it uses black humor as a style. Finally, the opportunities that Derrida’s “(in)hospitality” concept offers will be discussed, along with depicting the argument that the unique point of view of Tunç Okan’s cinema, -which comes from the context of seeing and understanding the other’s pain- may be a way out of the above mentioned problems of migration.

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Before focusing on the problems of migration in Tunç Okan’s cinema, it will be helpful to talk about migrant cinema and Tunç Okan with his migrant filmmaker identity.

II. These are the films of a migrant who is caught between two cultures. —Tunç Okan (Ayça,1985:16)

Considering the fact that issues such as migration and xenophobia have been only addressed in a limited way in European cinema after 1990s1 (cited in Ulusay, 2008: 53 from Ballestros), Tunç Okan can be seen as a pioneer director with the films he made on these issues in the '70s and '80s. In a sense, he has preceded the '90s’ European migrant cinema with his outspoken films based on black humor. Although there is a time lapse in this respect, Tunç Okan’s cinema will be addressed through the concepts that are discussed and diversified after the '90s within the context of migrant cinema. Also in Turkey no independent conceptualization as migrant cinema has been made before the '90s and the films have been categorized according to their plots that deal with external migration (Makal, 1987; Esen, 2000). However, “by being the subjects of temporary or permanent migration and exiles based on various reasons, and a certain practice based on mobility, a group of directors from different parts of the world continue their profession with an explorer's spirit from one geography to another and they can be described henceforth as the founders of a new cinema” (Ulusay, 2008: 45). The fact that creativity, cinematographic features and some common traits within the context of ideology and spectatorship are present in the films of these directors has introduced a new genre called “migrant cinema” (53). Studies of migration cinema have become varied with the questioning of the concept of nation-state and consequently the notion of national cinematography, and the differences between national cinema industries and the increase of the idea that national cinema reflects a deficient point of view despite the changing conditions. These kinds of films are defined “as a type of ‘postcolonial hybrid films’ (Shohat/Stam, 1

In Europe, related legal rights and regulations have been started to be made in the '90s. In consequence of the efforts of Migrant Forum held in 1994, a new article called “Measures Against Discrimination” was added into the Treaty of European Communities at the Europe Amsterdam Governments Conference (1995) (Göztepe, 2004:333-336).

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1994: 42), ‘independent transnational cinema’ (Naficy 1996), ‘exilic and diasporic filmmaking’ and ‘accented cinema’ (Naficy 2001)” (Göktürk, 2005: 57). Bergfelder “emphasizes the various degrees of cultural assimilation, which has an impact on migrants, as a criterion” (cited in Yaren, 2008: 50). The concept of migrant cinema is often used to address the films of the third world migrant filmmakers made in the developed countries. However, as Ulusay (2008: 54) has stated, in today’s European cinema, the films on migration and its problems are made not only by migrants, but also by filmmakers from the host country. In terms of production style and practices, the films of Tunç Okan can be considered under migrant films. Film credits immediately give the information that these films are transnational. In a period when coproductions and fund support have not been widespread, the financial support and film crew formation in Tunç Okan’s films have the characteristics of multinationality, and the film crew is comprised of people of different nationalities. Otobüs is a co-production of Hélios Films, PAN Film and Promete Film. Cumartesi Cumartesi is a coproduction of Evren Film and øtalio. Fikrimin ønce Gülü is a co-production of Evren Film, L’european, Man Film and Swiss Television with the contributions of the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC) and the German Federal Film Board (Filmförderungsanstalt). The films’ casting, technical staff and creative staff are also comprised of people of different nationalities. Furthermore, the films have a feature of multilingualism that defines migrant cinema. Otobüs is in Turkish, German and Swedish; Cumartesi Cumartesi is in Turkish and French, and Fikrimin ønce Gülü is in Turkish and German. Tunç Okan’s connection with cinema as a director has also been established in Sweden. By winning the grand prize in a cinema magazine’s cover star competition held in Turkey, Okan started his cinema career as an actor and he also worked as a dentist in the German region of Sweden. He completed his doctorate in Jaw Orthopedics at the University of Bern and started shooting Otobüs after meeting Güneú Karabuda-Barbro Karabuda. “In the biographies of the many migrant filmmakers working in Europe, being a migrant has often been the primary identity. Migrant filmmakers in Europe are mostly composed of people who have experienced migration before cinema and either they came from migrant families or they first started this profession in the host countries” (Yaren, 2008: 56). Although Tunç Okan has started making films after having experienced migration, he points out that there are some differences between his personal migration experience and the experience expressed in Otobüs (and maybe in Fikrimin ønce Gülü). He says that “Otobüs

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depicts the first observations and reactions of a person who has been in a western society. Otobüs is the picture of what I saw there for the first time.” However, he points out that the migrant also changes. “Besides, I was leading a different, privileged life as a dentist. So, of course, what I have perceived was different from what I saw around me when I first came. And Cumartesi Cumartesi is the portrayal of this experience. In fact, both films are observational cinema” (Ayça, 1985: 14). Within the context of what Tunç Okan has mentioned, his films show both the inside and outside view of the migration issue, the life of the migrant, the feeling and perception of migration. In his films, it is possible to see an objective or distant view which may correspond to the observational cinema that Okan mentions, and one can also see the view from the inside which may correspond to the migrant cinema caught between two cultures. In this respect, it may be argued that his films approach migration/migrant issues in different and multi-layered perspectives.

III. The outsiders’ move to the inside always means a challenge to the life of the settled population, even though there is only a slight difference between the newcomers and the inhabitants. The tension which is resulted by the necessity to make room for newcomers and the outsiders’ need to find a place for themselves push both parties to exaggerate their differences. Small, unimportant things which may be passed over under different conditions now offend the eye and are presented as the obstacles in the way of living together. They become the objects of disgust and are presented as evidence that final separation is inevitable and integration is unimaginable. Anxiety and hostile feelings reach the boiling point for both parties but the inhabitants have better sources for acting on prejudices as a whole. They can also hide behind their rights on this place because it has been inhabited for a long time. (‘This is our ancestors’ land). Outsiders are not only seen as foreign and different, but also as “intruders” and “invaders” who do not have the right to live there. —Norbert Elias (cited in Bauman, 1998: 59-60)

Migration is the movement of human communities, either as persons or groups, in order to spend either some or all of their future life with the aim of having better life conditions and settling in a location different from

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their permanent homes (Bouiver, 1988; Tekeli and Erder, 1978).2 According to the Marxist approach, the migrant emigrates because of the social and economic conditions. In this process the need of low-paid labor of the country that accepts the migrant (Abadan Unat, 2002: 11) is decisive. The Marxist migration theory “has made important contributions to the discussions about the mutual relation between the development of capitalism and internal/external migration flows” by using issues such as the adaptation, assimilation and integration of the migrants as well as the approaches that analyze migration within the context of material and structural capital accumulation process and uneven development (Miles and Satzewich, 2007: 305-306). Migration, which includes spatial change in terms of geography and numerical change in terms of statistics, poses issues of labor in terms of economy and the integration of the newcomers with the society in terms of sociology. Within this context, the concept of identity emerges as an important phenomenon. Identity, as a cultural, historical and social structure (Bilgin, 1994), occurs according to the structure of the other (Said, 2004). Although identity usually connotes the pursuit of differentness, the pursuit of similarity is very fundamental (Bilgin, 2007: 26). In the migrant cinema the importance of the migrants’ nationality disappears after a certain point. The migrant identity becomes determinant, holistic and transnational. As Tunç Okan emphasizes, “the Turkish workers in Otobüs could have been from any other underdeveloped society. The fact that they are Turkish is only a coincidence. If they were Italian or Spanish, the film would lose nothing from its message” (Oral, 1977). With the new liberal discourse developing since the 1980s and the defeat of left values in the '90s, the identity for migrants, which is defined through class categories, has left its place to the definition of “new social movements” that is based on cultural differences (Erbaú and Çoúkun, 2007: 5-27). Identity, within the context of Turkey and external migration, is related to the cultural shock that has occurred by the result of the encounter of the generation of the 1950s, often called as the first generation, with modern European cities and European life style due to the disengagement from the village life, and it is also related to the integration of the second generation and the belonging issue of the third generation caught between two languages and two cultures. In determining the belonging of the individuals, identities, psychological and socio-cultural

2

Within the scope of our study, migration and external migration are emphasized in the text. External migration can happen legally or illegally and migrant smuggling constitutes an important problem.

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features and environmental factors have key roles. Spatial belonging arises through an inhabitant’s feeling of possession on an area of partial sovereignty (Ilgn and Hachasano÷lu, 2006: 60). If one cannot build an area of sovereignty around him/her, one cannot feel safe there and cannot consider this place as one’s own. The people who cannot build their area of sovereignty also cannot build areas of privacy and cannot make themselves comfortable in their environment. The experience of the nine illegal migrants who had been imprisoned inside the bus at Stockholm Square is precisely such a problem of belonging. Ulusay (2008: 167) emphasizes that the themes such as the sense of imprisonment and displacement appear through the bus. Naficy (2001: 257) points out that the metaphor of a mobile prison is “grimly multilayered” in Otobüs. According to him “at one layer, the bus (a means of mobility, freedom, and safety for the migrants) is transformed into its opposite (an immobile and confining edifice). At another level, those who venture out of the bus discover that the host society they had feared is not always hostile; more often, it is just indifferent to their presence”. The relation with the city is established in daytime through evasive observation by looking behind the bus curtains, and at night through getting off the bus in order to satisfy the basic needs, and they try to live this different city on the empty streets, in the subway and at the square when there are no urban dwellers, no settled ones around. Through reminiscence and narrations that refer to memory and place, the feelings of belonging based on the fundamental concepts such as family, religion, ethnicity, fatherland and home are repeated. All associative, vocalic, olfactive, tactile, material and visual elements of memory and remembrance are actively used (Bender 2001: 83). In the pub scene of Otobüs, during the erotic show and the homosexual’s sexual assault, the illegal migrant has an association with his lover working in the cotton field of the village in black and white. Association, the practice of recalling a phenomenon or date, always occurs within the social interaction net (Jedlowski 2001: 31). The Migrant’s belonging and sense of identity and his need to assign a meaning to the landscape in his memory and to the location where he lives are materialized through association that shows the differences. Migration societies significantly benefit from material cultural components in remembering the past and in recalling and keeping the memory of the landscape. In Otobüs, the lover is recalled through her hand-painted kerchief and smell. Will the migrant, who is worried about his future, meet his lover again? What is his lover doing? The present time has an effect on the reconsideration of the past and it also affects the fictionalization of future projections (Jedlowski

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2001: 30). In Fikrimin ønce Gülü, Bayram sets out on a journey in his memory through associations while facing his past. The associations of the road shatter the fictions of the past and the future.

IV. The one that has recently come from a village or a small town is usually astonished at the big city’s distinctive indifference and cold apathy. People behave as if they did not pay attention to other people. They pass by without looking at people and without realizing that they are human beings. You can bet that nobody will turn a hair if something terrible happens to you. It is as if an avoidance, maybe even an antipathy wall was put up between you and them; this is a wall that nobody thinks it can be climbed over, and this wall is a distance that cannot be overcome. People are hopelessly in a state of physical nearness; however, morally -mentally, and ethically- they manage to have an endless distance between each other. The silence that separates them and the distance, which is used as a skillful and indispensible weapon against the danger felt in the presence of strangers, are perceived as a threat. The one who is lost in the crowd feels that he is left with his own resources and the person feels unimportant, alone and dispensable. —Bauman (1998: 79-80)

Bauman’s words above almost define the primary focus of Otobüs. Okan, with a migrant and filmmaker identity, and Bauman, with an academic and intellectual identity, have a similar approach to the dichotomy of inhabitants/foreigners. “Xenophobia”, which is developed from prejudice, means hostility against everything “foreign” and it can be observed explicitly in Otobüs. The settled ones, with almost all classes, look at the bus and the people inside with xenophobia. Only “filthy foreigners” can get on the old bus at the square, the migrant who falls into the sea by freezing is a “filthy foreigner”, the migrant who jumps on the food in the pub scene because of hunger and cultural shock will be defined as “barbarian”, “wild” and he will be beaten up, and in the ball scene, migrants who jump on the plastic food because of hunger, will become the objects of ridicule. The migrants of Otobüs, separated from the rural area

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of Anatolia, are in a sense Neúet Günal’s “soil men”3 and as they are separated from their context and place, they become alienated and ugly4 in Stockholm. Goffman (cited in Bauman, 1998: 78-79) indicates that the technique which enables you to live in a city among the foreigners is behaving as if you were not looking and listening. The “civil carelessness”, which briefly means avoiding eye contact, also explains the relationship between the migrants and the settled ones. The migrants in Otobüs observe the inhabitants in daytime through the bus curtains. When they meet with each other, they avoid eye contact, and only when it is necessary that they catch each other’s eyes. This is also the same for settled ones. The communication of the settled ones with the migrants is made through marihuana and molestation. Since they can not speak their language, the migrants do not understand what the inhabitants want from them. The migrant, who is lost at night while escaping from the police, runs desperately on Stockholm streets and when he meets an inhabitant that walks his dog, he asks, “Did you see the bus, brother?” The inhabitant is scared when he meets the migrant whom he perceives as a foreigner and he runs away. The inhabitants and the illegal migrants do not have a common language in Otobüs. The migrant, as “A Seventh Man” of Berger (1987) and as the “Lowest of the Low” of Wallraff (1986), is so deprived of everything within the context of the sovereign relation that he does not even belong to a certain class or identity. The migrant is a subaltern5. The subaltern does not have a language of his own (Somay, 2008: 155). Only the ones that resemble the migrants can hear their screams. While the 3

It is possible to establish an indirect connection between the migrants of Otobüs and the soil men of Neúet Günal, who is an important representative of Turkish painting. The migrants of Otobüs seem to have jumped out of Neúet Günal’s painting. These people, who have big hands and feet, are looking at us apprehensively in worn out clothes and they are based on the observations of both artists. Likewise, it is possible to establish a connection between “photojournalist” Ara Güler’s photos of the '50s and '60s and the migrants of Otobüs. The people whom Neúet Günal and Ara Güler have observed with a loving affection are presented in Otobüs with an almost grotesque manner. 4 In the text, the issue of ugliness will be later associated with black humor. 5 “Subaltern is used to address the ones who occupy a lower position in every kind of social/cultural/economic/political context, in lower/upper dichotomies… In order to be a subaltern, one should be a part of a certain sovereign relation, that is to say, subaltern only exists with its other (or as the other of someone). Can the Subaltern speak? Spivak answers this question by saying no. Language is the language of the men, the European, the white, the bourgeois (or dominant class), the heterosexual and the nation-builder ethnic group” (Somay, 2008: 155).

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streets of Stockholm are absorbing in an indifferent manner the scream of the migrant (“Memet… Memet”), who is lost on the street, the scream of Mehmet, who is alienated in the pub, is heard only by other migrants. After Mehmet’s scream, the film cuts to the shot where the other seven migrants that walk together in the subway turn to the camera and look at it. The implication that only other migrants can hear this scream suggests that there is no communication between the migrants and the inhabitants. This non-communication does not only arise from the fact that they have different languages; it is rather a result of prejudice and othering. In this respect, migrants of ‘the Bus’ are “arrivants”6 in Derridaian terms. Being uninvited guests, they cannot be identified, anticipated or foreseen. In the dichotomies of host/guest, inhabitant/migrant, capital/labor and center/periphery the migrant, as a subaltern, has always been in the second position. This state changes neither in the homeland nor in the host land. The migrants of Otobüs are foreigners in Stockholm and Bayram in Fikrimin ønce Gülü is a foreigner in his own homeland. Whether it is a customs officer, a parking lot attendant, a waiter, a truck driver or a police officer, everybody that Bayram meets treats him as a foreigner. What makes Bayram a foreigner is the perception of “being Turkish in Germany, being German in Turkey”. Does the migrant not have a homeland of his own? Two different societies and cultures that have become a current issue with the migration/migrant relation, the conflict between the feudal, traditional structure and the modern city life, the cultural shock it creates and identity and belonging issues constitute a productive area for black humor. Tunç Okan uses black humor as a style by using this given area. Cumartesi Cumartesi is based on Salami and Dürennmatt, the author of Salami, is also a black humor writer. From the formation of the scenario to the definitions of the characters and from exaggerative mise-en-scéne used in his cinematic narration to the expressions of the actors, black humor leaks into the film on several accounts. Within this context, the observation in the films of Tunç Okan, who is also a migrant, is reflected on the screen as black humor.

6 According to Derrida (1993: 33) “the neutrality of that which arrives , but also the singularity of who arrives, he or she who comes, coming to be where s/he was not expected, where was awaiting him or her without waiting him or her… without knowing what or whom to expect… and such is hospitality itself, hospitality to word the event”.

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V. Laughter comes into being in the self-same fashion. It indicates a slight revolt on the surface of social life. It instantly adopts the changing forms of the disturbance. It, also, is afroth with a saline base. Like froth, it sparkles. It is gaiety itself. But the philosopher who gathers a handful to taste may find that the substance is scanty, and the after-taste bitter. —Bergson (94:1998)

Black humor has its roots in the 17th century, in Jonathan Swift’s stories and its traces can be seen in the works of Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Allen Poe in the 19th century, and especially in Europe, between two World Wars, black humor takes its place in literature in the works of the authors such as Beckett, Ionesco, Dürrenmatt. In cinema, black humor can be seen in the films of Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Tati. The black humor seen in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1963) continues in Coen Brothers’ works in a similar vein. In the films, black humor is constructed through acting, mise-en-scéne, the formation of the plot and narrative structure. The black humor, which is defined as “the grotesque, the malicious humor that is used to address the absurd, apathy and the evil in literature, drama and cinema” (Özen 2005: 103) is conceptualized by Andre Breton7. Black humor includes “intense conflict with dominant values, questioning and hopelessness” and it embraces “the type of aphorism which is striking and short” (Batur, 1987: 7-12). It aims to reveal “the irrational deviation of the given life” (Köksal, 2005: 99). It is tried to be expressed through “definitions such as the merging of unhealthy, destructive elements with comic elements” (Demiralp, 2005: 88). When analyzing the issues of society, it will be more accurate “to consider black humor as a separate comment, a different dimension in the perspective instead of considering it as a type of humor” (Oral, 1982: 15). In this context, Tunç Okan looks at the world of migration/migrant from a different dimension by using black humor. We can see the black humor element in Tunç Okan’s cinema through today’s perspective; but when we look at it through the eyes of his time we can also reach the same conclusion. In Otobüs, the vehicle which makes the journey possible and which would help the migrants to reach the civilization, money and a better life, 7

Breton, who is a poet and a significant representative of surrealism, has prepared his first black humor anthology in 1939.

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is a shabby bus. It is so old that the young workers at Stockholm square could not go on a journey with it. There is also a big contrast between the bus and the square where it is parked: a modern city and a bus that obviously does not belong there and illegal migrants. Black humor follows this contrast in the film. The migrants have never seen a city other than their own villages or towns and when they leave the bus to use the toilets, the first thing that the migrants encounter in this new world is a couple who is making love inside a phone booth. Sex shops, stylish shop windows, police, escalators, erotic pub, homosexuals, ballroom dancing in the subway, plastic food… The usage of music in the film also reflects the contrast like other visual and dramatic elements of structure, and it emphasizes the black humor. In Cumartesi Cumartesi the butcher, who chops his wife to death and makes a salami out of her in his dreams, apologizes at the court by saying “I’m sorry, I’ll not do it again” and yet, in reality he chops his three friends and all these instances reflect black humor. Most of the scenes in the film proceed through these kinds of absurd elements: the boy who causes destruction in day nursery searches for a reply to the question of “what is this?”; the unemployed men goes to a massage saloon with his wife’s money; a feeble and weak person pretends to be strong; the naughty boy at the dentist easily solves the Rubik's cube; because of beauty, women cannot go out of the beauty saloon… In Fikrimin ønce Gülü, the black humor crystallizes through the journey of Bayram with his Mercedes called Balkz and the meaning which he assigns to his car. In every instance during the journey that the Yellow Mercedes is damaged, Bayram’s identity, sense of belonging and ego is damaged as well. Bayram crosses Europe by his Yellow Mercedes in a peaceful state. The damages to the automobile, and consequently to Bayram, begins at the Edirne border gate in Turkey. The black humor can be seen through the disintegration that is caused by these damages. Otobüs was banned in Turkey and it was released only by the decision of the Council of State in 1977, and this process can also be considered as black humor. In 1974, The Central Film Control Commission saw no harm in the adaptation of the scenario into a film, and yet the commission banned the film in 1976 because the film “insults Turkish people and shows them as stupid, it shows workers peeing on foot and they sit down to a meal without washing their hands and it is against Turkish values, the fact that there is stale bread and onion on the dining table gives the impression that the Turkish are undernourished, the fact that the driver turns where there is no turn sign gives the impression that Turkish people do not obey traffic rules and the workers try to eat plastic sausages and it

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is humiliating” (“Sansürde/Otobüs”, 1984:23). The film is released by the decision of the Council of State. Tunç Okan does not build his story on the migrants’ resistance or on their success in achieving what they desire in spite of the hard conditions. Because his aim is to reveal the prejudices at the encounter of two different societies and to form contrasts in order to make the spectator confront with the problems of the migrants. He presents the differences in a short, striking and sometimes grotesque way in accordance to black humor. This sense of humor also precedes the despair in the final scene. In the film, we cannot laugh at most situations that look ridiculous. The ugliness is emphasized with the cliché typecasting that has dark eyes, dark eyebrows and a crooked head, and it is complementary to the narration that describes migrant Turkish people as barbarians. However, this is not limited with a one dimensional ugliness perception. A world of ugliness is formed through the union of the one, who has man slaughtering rituals which are complementary to the narration that defines European people as degenerate and corrupt, with the cliché of the grotesque human portraits of the middle ages.8 These grotesque and exaggerated descriptions include all the clichés of the prejudices of the two cultures against each other and they become one of the main elements of the black humor in Tunç Okan’s cinema. In this respect, it does not seem right to define these films as realistic. The reality of the subjects of the films and the realism as a narrative style should not be confused with each other. The images of ugly people that Tunç Okan shows throughout Otobüs are combined with the fact that there is nobody in the film that inclines towards goodness. While the migrants are the prisoners of their needs that evoke wild animals, European people satisfy their most bestial and primary needs in more complex structures within the scope of rituals related with development. This can be easily observed in the scene of the party the homosexual takes the migrant to. The migrant is hungry. His physical hunger suppresses his sexual hunger under all conditions. The migrant is shocked by the sexual intercourse scene which is performed in front of a select society of the inhabitants. However, hunger is more primary and eating is the most fundamental human right. The woman screams, “he took my meat” while the migrant is tucking into the pieces of meat on the tables and even though she does not need the meat, she also refuses to share it and it is not because she is hungry or she will eat the meat right away, she is essentially the member of a society that shows its rejection when the 8

The film was criticized by Aziz Nesin and evaluated as “the humiliation of mankind” (The inquiry of Milliyet Sanat Magazine, 1977:5).

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migrant breaks the social rules. Whether in the context of obeying social rules (with the criteria of advanced societies) or whether in the context of possession through the primary urges, both situations are associated with all the material and moral weaknesses of mankind. In the next scene, the weaknesses become clearer in the reactions of the migrants and in the attitudes of “Saturday Night Ball” members who have deceived them by leaving plastic food. Black humor often shows its face on the scene. The migrants, who try to bite plastic food and later move away as if they were escaping from the cynical laughter of the members of the ball, use the downward conveyor of the escalator, which they used before with difficulty, to go upward. On the escalator, they desperately struggle as they go in the reverse direction. This tragicomic scene, which solidifies unfamiliarity and alienation, includes allusions to the psychology of the migrant’s existence in a foreign land. The migrant’s effort to go against the flow is almost a metaphor of their incompatibility with the society. The contrast between the attitude of the advanced society that disregards the migrants and the migrants’ needs is also emphasized in another scene related to hunger. One of the hungry migrants, who cannot get out of the bus because of the fear of being caught and observes all the colors of the city through the bus curtains, looks at the fried chickens that turn around inside a restaurant window. Chickens almost dance in the eyes of the migrant with the sound of the rehearsing brass band. In a similar way, accompanied by Bach, cabaret and show centers, Moulin Rouge, alcoholics on the streets, drunken people who are dancing under the influence of alcohol are shown. By adding Bach’s music, which is a symbol of high art, to the background of human figures that move with the language of the street, Tunç Okan draws attention to intercultural encounters as well as to the encounters within the same culture. He uses music as an element of black humor. In this regard, he draws a parallel between the migrants who pee into the lake in alignment (and also the migrant who is doing ecstatically a belly dance during the break time) and the miserable figures of today’s society in which high art was produced in the past. According to Okan, “Otobüs is not a film that defends directly the oppressed lower class or the backward countries. It is, however, a film which principally accuses all the class structures of the advanced societies and hysterical petit bourgeoisies of the underdeveloped societies”. (The booklet of Otobüs). The automobile, the highway and the simple bourgeois version of the family life that Harvey (2008: 23) considers among the icons of today’s culture, appear as patterns in the black humor world of Tunç Okan’s migration/migrant cinema. Within this context, in Otobüs the bus itself, in

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Cumartesi Cumartesi the simple bourgeois version of the family life, and in Fikrimin ønce Gülü the highway are all regarded as cultural icons.

VI. Cars today are almost the exact equivalent of great Gothic Cathedrals. —Roland Barthes (1973: 88)

The Automobile, as a ‘King-Object’ and a ‘Pilot-Object’, structures the daily life by organizing “many behaviors in many areas from economy to discourse” (Lefebvre, 1998: 104) and is considered as “the inevitable and desired countenance of life by settling in our individual experience and belief systems as a cultural artifice” (Freund and Martin, 1996: 16, 18). The Automobile is a typical example of an ideology that provides a sense of comfort in an enclosed space (Pervanchon, 2000: 141), offers both physical and bodily pleasure as a reflection of the ego, (Raban, 2000: 140), satisfies the person’s sense of private property like being a homeowner and symbolizes individualism. It is an essential part of the daily life of today’s society as an object of power and fetish (Freund-Martin, 1996: 119, 124). The discourse of the automobile has been transformed into a magical object consumed in the form of a sign by covering the area of imagery and leaning on the rhetoric (Lefebvre, 1998: 105). The Mercedes is an issue of existence for Bayram. He buys a Mercedes, which is a sign of status, with the money that he saved while working as a street sweeper. He believes that when he returns to his village, he would be honored by his uncle, his lover and the villagers and welcomed as a gentleman. When he stops over on his way to his village, he cannot eat meatballs that he has missed so much. He does not have enough money, and yet he drives a Mercedes. During the journey, he lies about his workplace. He says that he works at the factory of BMW or Mercedes. He perceives the damages done to the Mercedes (its badge is stolen, a stone hits the window or the scratch on his car) as a personal problem. The film presents the automobile as a desired object and its role in determining the social status through a flashback which shows some boys gathering around an automobile that came to Bayram’s village when he was a child and Bayram’s admiration for the automobile. The automobile has been a sign of modernization in Turkey. In this respect, the automobiles of Mercedes have been considered for years as a sign of status, power and class. The domestic automobile production and the migrants who return from abroad with automobiles, particularly in Mercedes, have been determinative in this process.

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The vehicles, which are presented mostly as male figures, sometimes transform into an object of desire when they are identified with a female figure. For both genders, the vehicle plays “the role of the uterus” as it is symbolically the sign of a safe place (Wernick, 1996: 120). In Otobüs, the bus functions as a uterus, a shelter, a safe place for the illegal migrants who are abandoned at Stockholm square. In the final scene, the migrants who are forced by the police to leave the bus are like children who are forced to leave the uterus. With each migrant that is taken to the police station, the bus is demolished. According to Naficy (as cited by Ulusay, 2008: 167) “the bus (and the migrants inside), as it is symbolized when the bus is demolished at the end of the film, represents an encysted ethnic organism, a ‘foreign body’ inserted under the skin of the Swedish body politics that must be removed”. The Automobile is also full of sexual connotations for women. It is argued that for women, the automobile depicts a man’s sex appeal (Freund-Martin, 2000: 130). In the erotic show in the pub scene, the men get undressed when they are chosen as the playboy of the night. Their underwear have automobile prints on them. The men brag about the brands of their cars, they take support from the brand. Here, the automobile represents the sexual organ of the man, the penis. Contrary to the migrants in Otobüs, Bayram has an automobile that he owns, though he does not brag like the playboys in the pub scene.9 “For the man, the car is a woman or rather a mistress … the road flowing in front of the steering wheel is the woman he owns and speed increases the intensity of this rapture” (Pervanchon, 2000: 144). Bayram lives his dreams, performs his daily activities and has his sexual experience in his automobile. Only after he owns a Mercedes that Bayram has sex with a woman. He has sex with Solmaz in the automobile. Bayram: ‘‘What a moment, Balkz! Thanks to you, we got Solmaz took out her panties…” By having a Mercedes, Bayram thinks that he has the right to have sex with any woman who gets into his car. This right is almost given to him by his Mercedes. This attitude is also seen in the scene on the ferry where he assaults a woman he has invited to his automobile. Bayram and Balkz become one; there is no “I” for Bayram. He talks to his Mercedes, Balkz with “we”: ‘‘…it’s very nice to be with you, Balkz. For years, I have waited for this moment. You don’t even know about this. Where are we going? I will show you our neighborhood, Balkz. Look; we have already crossed Austria, Yugoslavia 9

In the novel, Adalet A÷ao÷olu (1999: 22) expresses explicitly the gender of the automobile. “Very, very nice. It’s brand new… a car like a girl”. For “car enthusiasim” and modernisation in our literature, see Parla (1996) and the writings of A÷ao÷lu (1996).

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and Bulgaria. Roads are nothing for us!’’ Mercedes is not only an automobile any more; as Balkz, it is Bayram’s best friend and lover. Balkz connotes Bayram’s village, Ballhisar, and his lover, Kezban.

VII. Ubi pedes, ibi patria / Wherever the feet step on, it is the father land. —The Roman Law

The road, which needs to be considered together with the automobile, plays an important role in Tunç Okan’s cinema. Naficy (as cited by Ulusay, 2008: 167) notes that trains and buses provide “a link to geographical space and social groups based on experience, but they also supply metaphorical reanimations in the notions of journey, settlement and identity”. The road almost expresses the cross-cultural transfer, its painful process and the middle space of this process. Otobüs uses Stockholm square as a space after the short travel scenes. Fikrimin ønce Gülü shows Bayram’s return journey with Balkz from Hamburg to Ankara as an internal journey. In Tunç Okan’s both films, the road/journey theme has been dominant. Although these two films are not within the scope of the “road movie genre” (Cohan, 1997; Sargent and Watson, 2008), they have some common traits. 1. They tell a journey story. Otobüs tells the illegal migrants’ journey to Stockholm and Fikrimin ønce Gülü tells Bayram’s journey from Germany to his village. 2. Like in most of the road movies, the films end with a catastrophe. The bus is demolished and the migrants are arrested, one of them freezes to death and another one is beaten to death. Bayram’s Balkz has an accident, his uncle is dead and his lover is married. 3. Road movies are the stories about the escapes from home or the seekings of a home. In Otobüs, migrants escape to a foreign land with the dream of living a better life and in Fikrimin ønce Gülü Bayram dreams of returning home as a gentleman. This is a dream and also a search; because there is no home Bayram can go to. 4. Road movies include geographical panorama scenes ichnographically. Naficy (as cited by Ulusay, 2008: 167) says that “claustrophobia pervades the mise-en-scéne, the shot compositions and often the narratives of the films that feature buses and trains as vehicles and symbols of displacement”. In Otobüs, in the road and stopover scenes before arriving in Stockholm we see the frozen lake, the snowy road and then Stockholm square. In Fikrimin ønce Gülü we see the E5 traffic between Edirne–Ankara, the village roads on

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which Bayram has an accident and the road junction where Bayram stands aghast. 5. One of the common characteristics of the road movies is that they mainly feature male friendship. Otobüs deals with the journey of nine migrant men who are sharing a common fate beyond male friendship. Among Tunç Okan’s three films, Cumartesi Cumartesi’s position is different. Like Weekend (Jean Luc Godard, 1967) being the “negative image of the road movies” (Rojas, 2008: 240), Cumartesi Cumartesi is the negative image of Otobüs and Fikrimin ønce Gülü. Cumartesi Cumartesi’s Meral and Sümer manage to escape by living in a civilized society; in Otobüs this civilized world is emphasized by the rogue bus driver, who thinks that he is clever but is deceived by the prostitutes, that says, “Look at this civilization… you saved yourselves, man. This is civilization… money man, money…” Cumartesi Cumartesi’s Meral and Sümer, who have adapted to the environment that they migrated to, are “privileged figures that never think of stepping out of the comfortable borders of the middle class society” (Rojas, 2008: 240) just like Roland and Corin, the heroes of Godard’s film, Weekend. Both films take place at the weekend. While Godard questions “the possibility of transforming the geography of capitalism”, Tunç Okan questions capitalism’s condition that constantly forces people to do something through the discourse of “again, we couldn’t do anything today”. According to Monaco (2006: 194), “Weekend’s first half is a poem of black humor that tells capitalist civilization’s indulgence in automobiles and the glorified absurdity of the ceremony of massacre”. Of course, the cinema of Godard includes destructive and radical criticism to both cinema and capitalism. Furthermore, a parallelism may be established between Weekend and Fikrimin ønce Gülü through the frequently used scenes of accidents. According to Tekeli (2000: 104) the “road” is a “space of social relations” where new kinds of social relations take place; it’s a “social space”. This new space is “a public domain which is constructed through human-car-road elements” and “the individual inside the car in the space of social relations is not the same individual of the daily life anymore”. Fikrimin ønce Gülü is very convenient to be read through this point of view. Bayram’s relationship with Balkz is related to this kind of relationship. Moreover, in Otobüs the migrants who are taken abroad illegally have no homeland other than the bus. And in the end, this homeland will be demolished. The final scene of Fikrimin ønce Gülü also emphasizes homelessness and belonginglessness in a similar way. Bayram waits at a road junction inside his damaged Balkz in the middle of the moors. He has neither a village to go nor a home. For the migrant, “it is impossible to ‘return home’ again” (Chambers 2005: 99). Does he have a

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home to return? Migrants almost do not have a homeland other than the road. The road together with the automobile or the bus has become a fatherland for them. This homelessness and belonginglessness situation shows parallelism with the transnational cinema understanding of the migrant cinema.

VIII. No other tool other than cinema can tell all these stories and make these phases visible in a more dramatic way… a handful of films invite us to see the dirt/sins/responsibilities in our daily life by holding a mirror to our faces with the silver screen, it’s a mirror to the ‘normal’ people of a normal world, in other words, to the people who have not become refugees yet. This is also an invitation to create and spread an “ethics of looking” that would make us see the pains of others. —Sancar (2006: 2)

Derrida brings into question the concept of “(in)hospitality” which is based on Kant. In Kant’s “Design of Perpetual Peace”, the right of sojourn, which is considered not as philanthropy but as a right, is a human right. “The right of sojourn is not to be treated as an enemy when a foreigner has arrived in another’s area… after all, hospitality is the opposite of hostility, the exact opposite. The guest who is received as the opposite of the other foreigner that is treated as an enemy, is the foreigner who is treated as friend or ally (friend/enemy, hospitality/hostility)” (Derrida, 1999: 47). Through the polysemy of “We do not know what hospitality is” sentence, Derrida suggests that we need to “embark on an adventure from the disturbing analogy” by drawing attention to the semantic source between “hospitality” and “hostility” (69). Within this context, the adventure of the migration cinema starts on the point where the migrant encounters the inhabitant as a result of migration. The migrant cinema shows that “sojourn as a human right” does not happen in political practice unlike philosophical context or it shows how far away we are from it. It confronts us with the thing that prevents the actualization of hospitality, with “blindness”. It provides an opportunity of thought to the viewer (us) who thinks one is far away from (and out of) everything and the inhabitant who is xenophobic by showing what one does not see or what one does not want to see. The migrant cinema, which has been formed through the encounter of different cultures and which has been converted into something different beyond these cultures and nations,

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enables multilayered readings. In this context, Tunç Okan’s cinema is a migrant cinema which arises from cultural differences, develops through the phenomenon of non-communication, follows the dichotomies such as host-guest, inhabitant-migrant, capital-labor, center-periphery, rich-poor and leaving-returning and walks at the borders of black humor. In terms of production practice and the fact that the number of studies on these kinds of films has increased considerably in the 1990s, it can be suggested that Tunç Okan can be considered as a pioneer filmmaker who tries to “create an ethics of looking that would make us see the pains of others” through black humor.

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Derrida, Jacques (1993). Aporias, trans: Thomas Dutoit, California: Stanford Uni. Press. —. (2005). Paper Machine, trans: R.Bowbly, California: Stanford Uni. Press. —. (1999). Konuksev(-er-/-mez-)lik. Ferda Keskin and Önay Sözer (ed.) Pera Peras Poros, østanbul:YKY. p:45-72. Erbaú, Hayriye and Çoúkun Mustafa K. (2007). Snf Kimli÷inden Kültürel Kimli÷e:Fark/Kimlik Politikalarnn Yükseliúi. Harbiye Erbaú (ed) Fark/Kimlik Snf. Ankara: EOS, p: 5-27. Esen, ùükran (2000). 80’ler Türkiye’sinde Sinema. østanbul: Beta. Freund, Peter ve Martin, George (1996). Otomobilin Ekolojisi. trans: G. Koca. østanbul: Ayrnt. Göktürk, Deniz (1999). Turkish Delight - German Fright: Migrant Identities in Transnational Cinema, ESRC Transnational Communities Research Programme: www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk. —. (2005). Evde Kimse Yok mu? 1990’lar Avrupa Sinemasnda Göçmen Kimlikler. Toplumbilim, No: 18, p: 55-62. Göztepe, Ece (2004). Yurttaúl÷n Kamusal ve Ulusüstü Boyutu: Avrupa Yurttaúl÷ ve ‘Göçmen Formu’ Örnekleri. Meral Özbek (ed). Kamusal Alan. østanbul: Hil. p: 321-340. Harvey, David (2000). Space of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ilgn C. ve Hachasano÷lu Orhan (2006). Göç – Aidiyet øliúkisinin Belirlenmesi øçin Model: Berlin / Kreuzberg Örne÷i. øTÜ Dergisi/A, C5, S:2, p.59-70. Jedlowski, P. (2001). Memory and Sociology: Themes and Issues. Time and Society. Vol:10 (1). p. 29-44. Lefebvre, Henri, (1998). Modern Dünyada Gündelik Hayat. trans: Iún Gürbüz, østanbul: Metis. Makal, O÷uz (1987). Sinemada Yedinci Adam. øzmir: Marú Printings. Miles, Robert ve Satzewich, Viktor (2007) Göç, Irkçlk ve Postmodern Kapitalizm. trans: Ö.Yalçn, D.Yüzüak, Harbiye Erbaú (ed) Fark/Kimlik Snf. Ankara: EOS. p: 303-333. Monaco, James (2006). Yeni Dalga. trans: Ertan Ylmaz. østanbul:+1 Kitap. Naficy, Hamid (2001). An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Londra: Princeton UP. Oral, Tan (1982). Karikatürümüzde Kara Mizah Örnekleri Çokçadr, Ama Bir Ekol ya da Akmdan Söz Edilemez. Milliyet Sanat Dergisi Yeni Dizi. No:45/1 April. p:14-16.

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Oral, Zeynep (1977). Tunç Okan: Tüketim Toplumu ønsanlar ile Az Geliúmiú Toplum ønsanlarn Karúlaútrdm. Milliyet Sanat Dergisi, 19 December, No:256, p:7. Özen, Saadet (2005). Kara Mizah Ödülleri. kitap-lk, S:79. p:103. Parla, Jale (2003). Makine Bedenler, Esir Ruhlar: Türk Romannda Araba Sevdas. Toplum ve Bilim, 96, Spring: 146–165. Pervanchon, Maryse (2000). Beden øçi Baúka Bir Yer ve Baúka Bir Zaman, Cogito, No: 24. p: 141–150. Raban, Jonathan (2000). Otomobil: Benli÷in Yansmas. trans: Ülkü Tamer. Cogito, No: 24, Güz. p: 139–140. Rojas, Peter (2008). Fransz Devriminden Gaullist Haftasonlarna. Jack Sargent and Stephanie Watson (eds). Kayp Otobanlar. trans: P.Özdo÷ru, østanbul: Altkrkbeú, p: 239-250. Ruppert, Wolfgang (1996). Otomobil: ‘Uzam Üzerinde Egemenlik, Gündelik Eúyalarn Kültür Tarihi. haz.: Wolgang Ruppert, trans: Mustafa Tüzel. østanbul: Kabalc Publishing. p:131–175. Said, Edward (1978). Orientalism. NewYork: Vintage Books. Sancar, Mithat (2006). Yaúamn Kysndan Ac Manzaralarna Bakabilmek. Exile, Refugees, Borders. Booklet of Festival on Wheels 2006. Sargent, Jack and Watson, Stephanie (eds) (2008). Kayp Otobanlar. trans: P. Özdo÷ru. østanbul: Altkrkbeú. Sachs, Wolfgang (1992). For Love of the Automobile. trans: Don Reneau. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sheller, Mimi (2004). Automotive Emotions: Feeling the Car. Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 21 (4/5).p: 221-242. Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. Londra: Routledge. Somay, Bülent (2008). Çokbilmiú Özne. øsanbul: Metis. Spivak, Gayatri C. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak?. in Carry Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (ed) Marxism and Interpretation of Culture. London: Macmillan. Stam, Robert .Shohat Ella (1994). Contested Histories: Eurocentrism, Multiculturalism, and the Media. Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader. David Theo Goldberg (ed.). Oxford:Basil Blackwell. p.298-324. ùentürk, Levent (2000). Seyyar Manifesto. Cogito Dergisi, No 24. p.119132. Tekeli, ølhan and Erder, Leila (1978). Yerleúme Yaps Uyum Süreci Olarak øç Göçler. Ankara: Hacettepe Üniversitesi. Tekelli, ølhan (2000). Araba Sevdas. Interview by Ahmet Kuyaú. Cogito, 24. p :96–106.

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Ulusay, Nejat (2008). Melez ømgeler. Ankara: Dost. Wallerstein, ømmanuel (1995). Belirsiz Kimlikler. trans. N. Ökten. østanbul: Metis. Wallraff, Günter (1986). En Alttakiler. trans: Osman Okkan. østanbul: Milliyet. Wernick, Andrew (1996). Promosyon Kültürü. trans: Osman Aknhay. Ankara: Bilim ve Sanat. Yaren, Özgür (2008). Altyazl Rüyalar Avrupa Göçmen Sinemas. Ankara: Deki. —. (1977). Sanat Dergisi’nin Soruúturmas Otobüs Filmi Türkiye’de Gösterilmeye Baúland Yazar ve Eleútirmenlerin Film Üstüne Görüúleri. Milliyet Sanat Dergisi, 19 December, No: 256. p: 4-8. —. (1984). Sansürde/Otobüs. Geliúim Sinema, No:3. p:23. —. (1977). Tunç Okan Booklet of Otobüs. østanbul:Pan Film.

AT HOME IN THE NEW GERMANY?: LOCAL STORIES AND GLOBAL CONCERNS IN YÜKSEL YAVUZ’S APRILKINDER AND KLEINE FREIHEIT1 CHRISTINA KRAENZLE

Reconceptualising the Domestic In a 1999 issue of Filmforum, Tunçay Kulao÷lu2 declared that the “new German film is Turkish” locating Turkish-German cinema as a cure for the ailing domestic film industry of the 1990s, described by Eric Rentschler and others as an apolitical “cinema of consensus.” 3 That year at the Berlinale a number of Turkish-German productions were screened to critical acclaim both in the Panorama and New German Films sections, leading numerous reviewers to conclude that Turks were the only ones 1 This article first appeared in The German Quarterly 82.1 (2009): 90-108 and is reprinted here with their kind permission. 2 Kulao÷lu critiques the persistent desire to locate film production in national or ethnic categories but nevertheless maintains that new directors of Turkish descent are ushering in “eine neue Art von Autorenkino” (11). In the same journal issue, reviewer Jürgen Kiontke located in Yüksel Yavuz’ recently released Aprilkinder the kind of social and political engagement that could counter the perceived commercialism of filmmakers such as Detlev Buck and Sönke Worthmann (“Sechs Qm in Germanistan”). 3 Eric Rentschler defines post-Wende cinema of the 1990s as predominantly a “cinema of consensus” that eschews politically-sensitive issues in favour of accessible and commercially viable films. See also Sabine Hake who similarly locates in this period a style of filmmaking that aimed to “accommodate the audience’s contradictory desire both for less complicated narratives of Germanness—including in terms of national identity—and for more optimistic visions of a multi-ethnic, multicultural society.” Like Rentschler, Hake sees the 1990s as constituting a break from the traditions of New German Cinema, including its ethos of authorship and its commitment to social and political engagement (179-92).

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making politically-engaged, socially-purposeful films in Germany (Göktürk, “Turkish Women” 71-74; Martenstein). Turkish-German cinema was thus seen as the heir to the New German Cinema of the 1970s and early 1980s—like New German Cinema before it, these contemporary films foregrounded individuals on the margins as well as the societal structures that excluded them from the mainstream. Such comparisons have persisted, most notably in reviews of Fatih Akin’s recent Auf der anderen Seite which point to similarities between Akin and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, not least due to the casting of Fassbinder icon Hannah Schygulla.4 Frequently, Turkish-German directors are asked in interviews to comment on the influences of New German Cinema on their work.5 The desire to situate Turkish-German cinema within larger national traditions is doubtless a useful political strategy to counter public discourses which cast minority communities as perpetually ensconced in culturally distant, difficult to integrate Parallelgesellschaften. In German literary studies, Leslie Adelson has persuasively argued the necessity of reading the literature of Turkish migration as an inextricable part of German culture in order to escape notions of essential cultural Otherness or migrants perpetually caught between worlds.6 However, the impulse to read Turkish-German film exclusively against the backdrop of New German Cinema runs the risk of obscuring the complexity of a burgeoning area of film production that often owes as much (or much more) to other national cinematic traditions or filmmaking practices that transcend national boundaries.7 This approach therefore does little to help escape national paradigms of analysis and—at its worst—falls back on troubling notions of a national tradition or Leitkultur ‘enriched’ by the importation of new voices and ‘foreign’ influences. 4

Comparisons to Fassbinder were spurred by Schygulla’s comments at a Cannes film festival press conference in which she likened Akin to the young Fassbinder (Borcholte). Akin claims the comparisons to Fassbinder began with Kurz und Schmerzlos (Beier and Matussek) but he rejects these comparisons pointing out the differences in his directorial style and his altered portrayal of minority communities “nicht mehr vom Rand, sondern aus der Mitte der Gesellschaft” (Beier and Matussek). 5 See for example Beier and Matussek’ or Borcholte’s reviews of Fatih Akin’s Auf der anderen Seite or Tokmak’s interview where Yüksel Yavuz is questioned at length about the influence of New German Cinema, especially Fassbinder, on his films. 6 See in particular Adelson’s “Opposing Oppositions”, “Touching Tales” or The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature. 7 For an analysis of categories such as national or transnational cinema from a German Studies perspective, see in particular Randall Halle.

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Subsuming transnational cultural production within national rubrics can also be a way of avoiding larger political questions regarding civil inequalities, migration politics and minority rights, as Hito Steyerl has argued in her analysis of the Heimat Kunst exhibitions—a series of art exhibits, concerts, symposia, film screenings, lectures, theatre and dance performances by artists of non-German background resident in Germany, staged in 10 different German cities in the spring and summer of 2000 and organised by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Steyerl contends that while Heimat Kunst may have been conceived as an opportunity to provoke critical reflection on the historically charged term Heimat and its attendant notions of belonging based on ancestral lineage, in the recruiting of ‘foreign’ artists to posit a new multicultural national image, the old functions of the term Heimat were not overcome. Instead, she argues, “while representing a renovated and globalized concept of Heimat, this reformulation leaves intact the basic dichotomy between the concept of Heimat and its alien/foreign counterpart” (165). Steyerl provocatively suggests that the enthusiasm displayed by numerous cultural institutions at the turn of the twenty-first century for artistic production of minority communities8 as well as the invocation of cultural theory that celebrated the creative potential of the deterritorialized individual constituted a German self-fashioning that promoted “a marketable brand of façade cosmopolitanism” in lieu of political debates about civil rights and migration policy: This is a very visible example of the recontextualization of postcolonial discourse in Germany, which has been appropriated first by cultural theorists and then by national institutions, but which hardly had any connection to political struggles for recognition of minority groups. In the wake of this shift in perspective, terms of postcolonial and minority discourses such as “difference” and “hybridity,” were recontextualized and appropriated by national institutions. (163)

Steyerl’s warnings about celebrations of cultural difference which threaten to supersede debates about persistent political inequalities are a useful reminder in recent discussions about what has been perceived as a shift in Turkish-German cultural production characterized by a new sense of self-understanding and forms of self-representation. Petra Fachinger 8

Another example of this phenomena is the internationally-screened Goethe Institute film series (originally part of the Heimat Kunst event) and the accompanying InterNationes publication, “Getürkt: Heimatfilme aus Deutschland,” which featured films by directors such as Thomas Arslan, Yüksel Yavuz, Fatih Akin, Kutlug Ataman, and Ayse Polat.

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notes how both recent Turkish-German literature and film make use of irony, masquerade and humour to foreground individuals unburdened by their various ethnic, linguistic or national heritages, thereby playfully subverting audience expectations about ‘ethnic’ filmmaking or literary practice. Deniz Göktürk has similarly delineated a shift from a “cinema of duty”—characterized by films of the 1970s and 1980s such as Shirin’s Hochzeit (1975), or 40 m2 Deutschland (1986)—to films which celebrate the “pleasures of hybridity”—exemplified by films such as Sinan Cetin’s Berlin in Berlin (1993) or Hussi Kutlucan’s Ich Boss, Du Turnschuh (1998) which break with social-realist documentary styles, employing humour and irony in their subversions of stereotypes and explorations of hybrid cultural identities (“Turkish Women”; “Turkish Delight”; “Strangers in Disguise”). Both scholars point to important differences in this new generation of filmmakers from the traditions of New German Cinema: not only have they transcended stereotypical representations of disempowered, voiceless minorities caught between cultures; they also are less ambivalent about popular formats and genres as vehicles for social criticism, thus attesting to a shift in popular culture that, unlike the socalled cinema of consensus, can be both entertaining and politically engaged (Gemünden 183-184). But while these are important insights, there is a sense in some analyses that films that do not engage the “pleasures of hybridity” or eschew social-realist styles are necessarily regressive in their investigations of emerging identities and run the risk of producing “compassion fatigue” and perpetuating the ghettoization of minority culture (Göktürk, “Strangers in Disguise” 121). Göktürk writes: Abschied vom falschen Paradies on the one hand and Berlin in Berlin on the other, seem to suggest two alternative routes for exile or diaspora cinemas. In one, we get scenarios of imprisonment, claustrophobia, binary oppositions between cultures, nostalgia for authentic homelands, longing for purity. In the other, we find first attempts to break out from imprisonment in a marginal niche and speak back to the centre, to occupy shifting points of identification, to switch between different modes of performance and thus undermine restrictive identity politics by employing humour and irony. I would like to suggest that we need more of this ironic and irreverent spirit not only in the films to come, but also in the discourse about exile and diaspora cultures. (“Turkish Delight” 14)

Göktürk rightly locates in Baúer’s 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland or Abschied vom falschen Paradies (and many films that followed) an iconography which supports myths of homogeneous, fixed cultural identities (“Beyond Paternalism” 133). She also touches on a troubling

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aspect of some films which, in their explorations of dislocation, may romanticize visions of a ‘pure’ homeland. As Hamid Naficy has explored at length, the tendency to pit dystopian views of the space of exile against utopian visions of the former home is a common denominator in films from a variety of political and cultural contexts (Accented Cinema 152221). As Göktürk points out, this aspect of exilic and diasporic cinema often fails to recognize the fragmentation, diversity and de-centredness that lies behind all imagined communities. But do films that foreground the limitations placed by the state on the potential pleasures of hybridity necessarily deploy binary models of identity and nostalgic desire? And do films that employ aesthetics common to exilic and diasporic cinema or the social-realist tradition in order to promote the sort of consciousness-raising that Steyerl calls for necessarily deserve to be relegated to a “cinema of duty”? It is in the context of these discussions that I wish to situate the work of Kurdish-German director Yüksel Yavuz, whose feature films to date, Aprilkinder (1998) and Kleine Freiheit (2003), offer a useful case study for thinking through the issues of identity politics and filmmaking style outlined above. After a brief introduction to Yavuz’ political motivations, aesthetics, and thematic preoccupations, I will consider how his two feature films offer a third alternative beyond a “cinema of duty” and the “pleasures of hybridity,” an alternative which explores evolving notions of Heimat and complex models of identity in forms that do not lose sight of the fundamental displeasures of ongoing political or economic inequalities.

Beyond Binaries Born in Karakoçan in Southeastern Turkey in 1964, Yavuz immigrated to Hamburg in 1980. Since the 1990s, Yavuz has directed numerous fiction and documentary films that treat issues of migration and, more specifically, the political situation of Kurds both in diaspora and in Kurdistan.9 While Yavuz has not achieved the same level of popular and commercial success or scholarly attention enjoyed by directors such as 9 After initial studies in sociology and political science Yavuz went on to study visual communication at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Hamburg. His films to date include: Close Up Kurdistan (documentary, 2007), Kleine Freiheit (feature, 2003), Der Mann mit dem weissen Mantel (short, 2000), Aprilkinder (feature, 1998), Mein Vater, der Gastarbeiter (documentary, 1995), 100 und eine Mark (short, 1994), Coromandel (short, 1993), Freedom Pension (short, 1993), Die Hoch-Zeit (short, 1992).

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Fatih Akin, his work has met with considerable critical acclaim.10 Thematically these two films foreground issues of exile, identity, belonging, and the crises of home and family for both migrants and German nationals in poor urban, ethnically-mixed neighbourhoods, undertaking the sort of reconceptualisation of Heimat that Steyerl argues was lacking in Heimat Kunst. Formally, the films defy any attempt to firmly locate Yavuz in any one specific genre, style or national category. While reviewers have repeatedly questioned Yavuz about the legacy of New German Cinema in his oeuvre, Yavuz denies any such influence, pointing instead to the importance of Turkish, Russian, Swedish, American and Italian cinema (Tokmak). Yavuz’ films thus illustrate not only the complexities of identity and belonging in contemporary urban settings, but also of the cinematic production that seeks to express this evolving reality. In interviews Yavuz defines a clear political purpose in his approach to filmmaking, stating as his primary intention the desire to promote global awareness of the plight of the Kurdish minority (Maffeis). Along with recent films such as Fatih Akin’s Crossing the Bridge: The Sounds of Istanbul, Yilmaz Arslan’s Brudermord, or more experimental works like Hito Steyerl’s November, Yavuz’ films serve to remind of the TurkishKurdish conflict and also to dispel popular misconceptions of a homogenous Turkish diaspora in Germany. His films also often incorporate autobiographical details and at times even feature immediate family members.11 The personal nature of the films furthermore lends even the

10 Aprilkinder received the Special Jury Prize of the German Academy of Performing Arts, the Audience Award at the Max Ophüls Festival, the First Feature Award at the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival in San Francisco and the prize for best film at the Festival Internazionale del Cinema di Salerno. Kleine Freiheit was awarded prizes at the Ankara International Film Festival (2003) and the International Istanbul Film Festival (2004). 11 The (auto)biographical is most obvious in Yavuz’ documentary Mein Vater, der Gastarbeiter (1995) which features his father’s migration from Kurdistan to Germany. Yavuz’ father was also cast to play the role of Cem’s father in Aprilkinder, a film the director claims was inspired by his parents’ separation during his father’s years as a guestworker in Germany (Maffeis). Yavuz also refers to his own employment history in Aprilkinder where the protagonist Cem has a job in a meat factory similar to the one in which Yavuz briefly worked. Kleine Freiheit is set in the St. Pauli district where Yavuz resides and features Leroy Delmar, a non-professional actor recruited from the neighbourhood. The other lead, Cagdas Bozkurt, was born in Yavuz’ hometown of Karakoçan and immigrated to Hamburg as a young boy (Maffeis). Yavuz’ most recent documentary Close Up Kurdistan

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dramas a quality of realism and authenticity that is strengthened by frequent use of non-professional or lesser-known actors, linguistic authenticity (the prevalent use of Turkish and Kurdish) and—in Kleine Freiheit—extensive exterior, location shooting. Aprilkinder and Kleine Freiheit thus fuse fiction and social reality in ways typical of social realist cinema, a category that is helpful for thinking about the thematic content, formal qualities, and audience appeal of Yavuz’ feature films. In fact, enthusiastic critics particularly praise Aprilkinder and Kleine Freiheit for their “rawness,” “precision” and authentic depictions of Hamburg neighbourhoods.12 Yavuz’ focus on themes of home, exile and diaspora however also align him with what Hamid Naficy has termed “accented cinema”, which he defines as the cinematic response to displacement by “exilic, diasporic, and postcolonial ethnic and identity filmmakers” who live and work outside their countries of origin (Accented Cinema). Naficy identifies the preoccupation with home and homeland as a defining feature of accented cinema and locates a common set of aesthetic practices typically employed in films that reflect the “double-consciousness” of their directors. These include epistolary narrative techniques which emphasize geographical distance and persistent memories of former homes, the emphasis on visual fetishes of homeland and the past (e.g. landscapes, photographs, souvenirs), multilingualism, and cinematography which destabilizes conventional omniscient narratives and spectator positioning—attributes which can all be found in Yavuz’ feature films (Accented Cinema 22-36). As Naficy argues, these aspects of “accented style” often self-consciously problematize realist representation in their juxtaposition of multiple sites, cultures, and languages, where representations of simultaneity and shifting points of view can remind viewers of the refracted nature of the reality depicted on screen. Despite their general faithfulness to conventions of realism, Yavuz’ films often consciously announce the constructed nature of their images to reflect on issues of representation, memory, displacement and subjectivity. In this article I offer a comparative analysis of Yavuz’ Aprilkinder and Kleine Freiheit to consider how the director employs realist and “accented” includes visits to places of his own childhood and interviews with relatives (Buder). 12 See for example Jürgen Kiontke’s review “O Mann, Realität! Aus dem wirklichen Hamburg: Aprilkinder von Yüksel Yavuz.” The Frankfurter Rundschau (10.8.1999) also praises Aprilkinder for its “stimmige Atmosphäre” and the “Authentizität der Geschichte” while Stefan Reinicke calls Aprilkinder “ein kleiner, präziser, rauher Film.”

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aesthetics and themes of home and homelessness to connect to wider issues of political and economic disparity as well as refugee and migration policy. I furthermore explore how the films juxtapose immigrant communities with ethnic Germans whose situations are also characterized by socioeconomic marginalization. Yavuz inserts marginalized ethnicGerman characters into his narratives to explore broader experiences of dislocation and exclusion, drawing parallels between migrant communities and poor or disenfranchised individuals from an ethnic-German background. In this regard, Yavuz can be compared to European social realist filmmakers who have attempted to move beyond the singular focus on traditional white working-class communities to include representations of other marginalized groups. Commenting on the British context, Samantha Lay notes how recent films such as Ghosts (2006), It’s a Free World (2007), Last Resort (2000), GYPO (2005) or The Margate Exodus (2007) extend their representations to include ethnic minorities, especially migrant workers and asylum seekers (237). Moving in a parallel, but opposite, direction, Yavuz evades reifying cultural models that pit deterritorialized migrants against nationals allegedly ‘at home’ in their surrounding environments. His films thus exceed the political intentions cited in the interview above to offer not only reflections on the plight of the Kurdish minority or the difficulties of life in diaspora. They also question the ability of both migrants and long-time residents to forge new home-places in situations of increased social and economic precariousness. Yavuz furthermore avoids some of the pitfalls associated with “accented cinema” by transcending binary models of hyphenated identities that often support the notion of migrants and their descendants as caught between two worlds. He subsequently rejects reductive, essentialist models of identity, opting instead to explore multiple alterities. Yavuz demonstrates how both the German and Kurdish ‘communities’ are comprised of fragmented groups of people whose senses of belonging and dislocation often have more to do with allegiances based on gender, race, sexual orientation, politics and class rather than nationality, language or ethnicity. In particular, Kleine Freiheit transcends binary oppositions and the particulars of minority-majority relations in Germany by selfconsciously referencing the larger transnational context of mass migration, poverty and homelessness. While the political realities depicted in both these films may be bleak, they nevertheless transgress the boundaries of a “cinema of duty” and explorations of cultural difference to instead consider the contingency and complexity of multiple categories of identity.

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Precarious Subjects: Migration and Labour in Aprilkinder Yavuz’s Aprilkinder (1998) tells the story of a Kurdish family in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, an inner-city neighbourhood with a relatively large immigrant population where brothers Cem and Mehmet live with their sister Dilan and their immigrant parents. Dilan is, in many ways, a typical teenager, coming of age and tentatively entering into her first romantic relationship. Mehmet drifts into organized crime, while Cem, the dutiful elder son, works in a meat factory. As tensions in their Kurdish village rise and political asylum becomes increasingly difficult to obtain, the family arranges for Cem to marry a cousin so that she may immigrate to Germany. Already reluctant to enter into such a marriage, Cem’s situation is further complicated when he meets Kim, a German prostitute. A relationship develops between Cem and Kim, but it quickly becomes clear that their worlds are incompatible and that Cem will ultimately submit to family pressures and to the arranged marriage. Yavuz’ first feature film rarely breaks from continuity editing practices and an almost documentary-style realism, aided by the use of untrained actors (Senem Tepe as Dilan, Bülent Esrüngün as Mehmet and Cemal Yavuz in the role of the ailing father), linguistic authenticity (the mix of Kurdish, Turkish and German as well as Mehmet’s street slang), and the detailed settings of interior spaces such as the family home, factory, or nightclub. Only in final sequences does the cinematographic style drastically change, cross-cutting from Kim and Cem’s last encounter to images of Cem’s family members preparing for the wedding, conveying the inevitability of the impending marriage. The final wedding scene is shot in slow motion with a hand-held camera; the images and sound are distorted suggesting Cem’s disorientation and panic in the realization that any possibility of a life outside of tradition and family duty has been foreclosed. Aprilkinder is thus representative of a number of films that deal with themes of generational conflict within diasporic communities. Films from Hark Bohm’s Yasemin (1988) to Fatih Akin’s Gegen die Wand (2004) depict individuals who must work out the tensions between familial expectations and individual desires. Common themes include the estrangement of children from their parents, and the loss of parental authority in families where the children are able to negotiate the languages and cultural codes of both the home culture and German society, but parents are isolated by their lack of cultural and linguistic fluency in their new place of residence. Particular staples of these films are absent or

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disempowered fathers, and mothers desperately trying to fill the void and maintain family stability.13 In Aprilkinder, all three children are representative of a generation torn between parental values and traditions and personal desires. Cem, the oldest, sacrifices his personal happiness to fulfill his familial duty by working in a menial job and entering into a loveless marriage. Dilan, the youngest, is disdainful of her parents’ morals, particularly those pertaining to marriage or sexuality. Mehmet’s involvement in the local mafia makes him the most estranged from his parents’ ideals; nevertheless he takes up an authoritarian position where his sister’s budding sexuality is concerned, enforcing patriarchal values in an effort to restrict her freedoms. All three siblings are fluent German speakers and use German to exclude their mother from their conversations. The mother depends on her children and husband to act as translators and is therefore disempowered in all situations in which German is spoken. Similarly, the parents use Kurdish to exclude their children from their conversations. The father suffers from a debilitating illness and thus exercises little authority in his children’s lives, leaving the mother to hold the family together as best she can. The focus on generational conflict is a typical theme, one which may initially tempt viewers to dismiss it as simply another depiction of culture clash and second-generation migrants hopelessly caught between worlds. Aprilkinder however avoids such simple models of identity: in its depiction of individuals at the margins of society, we encounter not only members of immigrant communities, but also Kim, who as a prostitute is marginalized in her own way. The film consequently reminds us that identities are marked not only by nationality, language, or ethnicity, but also by socio-economic status and class. While Cem’s and Kim’s origins may create barriers between them, they are in similarly disadvantaged economic situations: they are both trapped in unfulfilling, degrading employment in exchange for meager wages, and both find themselves excluded from mainstream German society. In the Cem-Kim storyline Yavuz explores the banality of working-class life from which Cem and his colleagues in the factory (Turks, Kurds, and Germans alike) would all like to escape. It is in the brothel that Cem transcends the daily rhythms of his menial job; the relationship with Kim is however never romanticized and 13

Many films from this period that depict diasporic communities foreground parents who hold no authority over their children. In Fatih Akin’s Kurz und Schmerzlos (1998) Gabriel repeatedly ignores his father and, until the end of the film, rejects his father’s religious faith. In Kutlu÷ Ataman’s Lola und Bilidikid (1999) the family is without a father; the mother has no control over her sons and is disempowered by her lack of fluency in German.

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the two spaces of work—brothel and factory—are depicted as equally dark, dingy, and claustrophobic. Here the iconography of claustrophobia is not reserved for ethnic minorities, but underscores the common socioeconomic confinement that crosses ethnic and national boundaries. In its emphasis on working conditions—whether in the factory, sex trade or illegal gangs—the film goes beyond mere reflections on migration to consider various situations of precariousness and exploitation, a shared condition which temporarily draws characters together, but ultimately fails to create opportunities for lasting alliances. It is also through the figure of Kim that Yavuz most effectively investigates issues of identity and belonging. As the only German woman working in a brothel that caters primarily to foreign nationals, Kim stands out in the club, not least because of her bright blonde hair. Her hair colour becomes a marker of her Otherness in a scene in which Kim and Cem hail a cab and unwittingly encounter a taxi driver who is an acquaintance of Cem’s family. The taxi driver compliments Cem on his conquest of a “blonde” and supports what he sees as Cem’s attempt at a last fling before his impending marriage. Here, Kim’s blonde hair becomes more than a physical attribute; it also functions as a sign of her German ethnicity and her exclusion from the Kurdish community. As such, she offers a temporary escape from Cem’s familial duty and the inevitability of the arranged marriage. Although the men speak Turkish, Kim suspects that she is the topic of their conversation and, in anger, removes what turns out to be a blonde wig, revealing her own short brown hair. This supposed marker of her ethnic identity is thus exposed as illusion, a trapping of her working persona in the brothel. Yavuz also uses Kim’s marginal status in the nightclub to explore how, in contemporary situations of mass immigration, a sense of cultural displacement may be experienced not only by migrants themselves, but also by long-time residents coming to terms with the changing makeup of a society in flux. When Cem visits the club with a German colleague from the meat factory, Kim engages in conversation with the German man, who describes how the ethnic diversity in his workplace makes him feel like an outsider. Kim tells him she can well understand his situation, alluding to her own position in the nightclub. Under previous ownership, Kim was a popular worker; the new owner, however, tells her that no one wants a German in his new club and then dismisses her. The film thus shows the complexity of boundaries of belonging and exclusion that exist in a new ethnically diverse German society. In this way, Yavuz avoids reifying any notions of a homogenous, stable German identity that could be pitted against an allegedly more fluid, diasporic identity of immigrant

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communities. Instead, Yavuz draws attention to the constructedness and instability of identities of all sorts. Cem, the German colleague, and Kim are all made to feel equally marginalized, albeit in different contexts and places. Allegiances in Aprilkinder are complex and ever-changing, forged not only along ethnic or national lines, but also across them as other aspects of identity – class, gender, and generation – are shown to be equally powerful sources of community and segregation.

Transnational Mobility, Illegal Migration, and Homelessness in Kleine Freiheit Themes of home, identity, and migration are also the focus of Kleine Freiheit which tells the story of illegal immigrants in Hamburg. Set in St. Pauli, the film’s title alludes to the plight of migrants who have no legal rights in the country. It also refers to the Kleine Freiheit and the Grosse Freiheit, two side streets off the notorious Reeperbahn. As Deniz Göktürk has observed the title also recalls Helmut Kräuter’s Grosse Freiheit Nr. 7 (1944) which is similarly set in St. Pauli and stars Hans Albers as the eternal sailor torn between a life of freedom at sea and the promise of a more domestic existence in Hamburg (“Kleine Freiheit” 1).14 These geographical and intertextual references help signal the importance of place in Yavuz’ Kleine Freiheit which simultaneously comments on the experience of transnational mobility and the changing makeup of German society in its urban centres. Extensive on-location shooting and the performances of the two leads, both untrained actors recruited from Hamburg, contribute to a sense of locale. The film focuses on two young illegal migrants. Baran is from a Kurdish village in South Eastern Turkey and has lost both parents in clashes between Kurdish paramilitary groups and the Turkish army. Denied asylum and facing deportation, Baran has chosen to stay illegally. Chernor is an African refugee, forced to deal drugs to support himself in Germany and to finance his dream of a future in Australia. The film thus treats a special case of illegal migration, namely the situation of unaccompanied, underage migrants who are given temporary status in Germany until the age of sixteen, but are ultimately deported—a situation 14

Numerous details connect the two films: Kleine Freiheit’s homeless sailor recalls the figure of Hannes Kroeger and also the aging Admiral who is unable to return to sea while Chernor’s desire to travel to Australia alludes to Hannes Kroeger’s destination at the end of Grosse Freiheit Nr. 7. Both films include numerous scenes shot in Hamburg’s harbour.

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Yavuz confronted in his work as a translator for asylum seekers in Germany (Maffeis). Baran and Chernor meet through a mutual acquaintance, a local homeless man named Käptn. A relationship develops between Baran and Chernor until one day a Kurdish man surfaces in St. Pauli who Baran suspects is responsible for his parents’ death. Baran seeks revenge, things escalate and, finally, Baran and Chernor are caught by police. As the film’s title suggests, Kleine Freiheit deals with the restrictions placed on the two young male protagonists, primarily the limited freedom of movement that they enjoy, since their conspicuous presence in outdoor spaces makes them particularly vulnerable to police who are cracking down on illegal migration and drug trafficking in St. Pauli. Several scenes remind the viewer that, for illegal migrants, public spaces pose a considerable risk. Throughout the film, Baran and Chernor anxiously alter their routes, or keep out of sight to avoid the attention of police officers. Finally, plainclothes policemen spot Baran and Chernor sitting in the public square, and, suspecting them of dealing drugs, ask to see identity papers, leading to their ultimate arrest. The film consequently draws attention to how illegal migrants are relatively immobilized in the spaces which they occupy. This sense of confinement is further underscored by numerous indoor scenes shot in small, unnaturally lit and claustrophobic spaces—e.g. Baran’s and Chernor’s apartments or the kitchen of the restaurant where Baran works. Interspersed with these scenes are, however, numerous sequences shot in outdoor locations such as heavily trafficked city streets or the harbour, shots which suggest both urban mobility and transnational trade. Most notable are the scenes in which Baran cycles through the neighbourhood in his job as delivery boy for the local kebab restaurant. These scenes are shot in triple exposure, layering images of disparate spaces in the neighbourhood—a bakery, a seedy night club, and construction sites. They help to illustrate the realities of cosmopolitan urban life, where various communities and lifestyles intersect in a chaotic and fragmented manner. As Göktürk notes, the film thus creates a sense of space in perpetual motion, and a picture of German urban society which is, metaphorically, in transit as this local space is permeated by flows of global migration (“Kleine Freiheit” 1; 4). Moreover, images of Baran’s bicycle recall other films that similarly foreground constellations of (im)mobility, (un)employment, poverty and homelessness in urban centres: in particular, shots of Baran pedalling through the city recall sequences in Dudow’s Kuhle Wampe where unemployed youth frantically cycle through Berlin seeking work, while the subsequent loss of the bicycle recalls De Sica’s

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neorealist classic, Ladri di Biciclette. The icon of the (missing) bicycle thus not only serves as an index of the socio-economic and political forces that paradoxically initiate and restrict human mobility, but also references possible cinematic influences that similarly portray oppressive social conditions in hostile (sub)urban environments, a tradition that has found resonance in countless contemporary contexts, but particularly in exile or diaspora films, for example Beur and banlieue cinema in France (Bloom; Murray Levine). Indeed, like much exile and diaspora filmmaking, Kleine Freiheit is especially concerned with the topography of dislocation: spatial metaphors for the experience of illegal migration abound and structure the entire film. While scenes depicting motion can be read as instances of the ‘little bit of freedom’ referred to in the film’s title, close analysis reveals tensions between motion and stasis which underscore the predicament of illegal migrants who, although displaced, are relatively confined in their movements. For example, high-angle shots of Baran cycling through the busy city streets show how he is hemmed in on both sides by passing vehicles, forcing him to navigate within an enclosed space and hindering his passage through the traffic. A similar moment occurs when Baran and Chernor visit an amusement park and ride a roller coaster. Close-up shots of their facial expressions show their experience of the ride as a moment of joy and temporary release from the daily pressures of lives lived in illegality. Nevertheless, the composition of the shot emphasizes the safety bars and restraints that keep the men firmly in place. While the objects in the background appear to be in motion, the young men themselves are immobile and pinned into their seats. Whereas the roller coaster ride offers a fleeting sense of liberation, it acts as a visual metaphor for the men’s situation in Germany. Although maintaining their livelihood and avoiding police require constant motion, the men exercise little agency in their movements; mobility is instead determined and limited by the state and its immigration and asylum policies.15 15

Yavuz’ representations of mobility and urban public space thus complicate Göktürk’s assertion that a spatial shift has taken place in recent films dealing with diasporic communities, where characters are often represented in exterior urban spaces, signifying increased mobility and liberation (“Turkish Women” 65). Many critics have called for a more differentiated analysis, especially in terms of gender, arguing that women do not enjoy the same level of mobility as men in these films (Gallagher; Mennel).15 Kleine Freiheit furthers this contention, showing how the treatment of illegal migration also necessitates a very different coding of mobility in public space.

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Tensions between mobility and stasis are further borne out in the plot and dialogue: Baran and Chernor are finally apprehended in open spaces and their final movements are not liberating, but acts of flight and arrest. Baran’s recounting of a childhood story also acts as a metaphor for the contradictory situation of illegal migrants. Watching a container ship likely bound for Australia, Baran tells Chernor of his childhood belief that kangaroos learn to hop in order to one day leave the continent, a goal they never achieve; their movements thus remain futile. Käptn’s recitation of Ringelnatz’ Zwei Ameisen16 similarly suggests unreachable destinations, reflecting the unlikelihood that Chernor will ever reach Australia. Restricted movement is perhaps best symbolized however by the loss of Baran’s bicycle. Fearing the increasing police raids, Baran’s boss fires him and confiscates his delivery bike. The motif of the lost bicycle is highly reminiscent of De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, a connection strengthened in many ways: like De Sica’s Antonio Ricci, Baran is barred from participation in the city’s activity and from generating any further means of existence once his bicycle is taken away. Both films contrast the initial joy, hope, freedom and companionship that the bicycle affords with the period of despair and loneliness that its loss ushers in and the protagonists’ new level of immobility is underscored by images of the surrounding chaotic traffic. Baran and Ricci both confront the hopelessness of their situations when they witness their bicycles in the hands of new ‘owners’ and the dire social conditions they face drive both to desperate acts. Such intertextual references serve to connect the specific situation of illegal migrants in contemporary Germany to larger global and historical contexts of socio-economic disparity, a nexus of local and global that is visually underscored in a close-up of Baran in front of a poster advertising “Global Action – Local Congress”, a series of discussions and events devoted to the analysis of the international anti-globalization movement that took place in Hamburg in 2001.17 By referencing broader, transnational themes of migration, poverty, or homelessness the film successfully transcends purely national concerns or the specifics of minority-majority relations in Germany. Connections to other spaces and political realities are also explored through the extensive use of video footage which symbolizes Baran’s 16

Ringelnatz’s poem also refers to Hamburg locales: “In Hamburg lebten zwei Ameisen, / die wollten nach Australien reisen. / Bei Altona auf der Chaussee, / da taten ihnen die Beine weh, / Und da verzichteten sie weise / dann auf den letzten Teil der Reise.” 17 For information on the congress see: http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/ kombo/k_47/k_47congrs.htm.

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connections to his former home and recalls the epistolary narrative techniques Hamid Naficy has identified as a distinguishing feature of exilic and diasporic filmmaking. Naficy notes the prevalence in many films of communications technology—for example, letters, telephone calls, or emails that are sent between exiles and those who have remained in the homeland (Accented Cinema 101-151). In Kleine Freiheit, epistles take the form of videocassettes: Baran has a video camera and uses it both to view tapes from home and to create tapes to send back. As an asynchronous mode of communication, the videocassettes emphasize spatial and temporal distance. Moments are frozen in time and can be relived, thus emphasizing the persistence of memories of home. Throughout the film we see video footage of Baran’s relatives in Kurdistan. The videotape thus allows Baran’s Kurdish home to figure uncannily in the space of Hamburg and to remind of its absence. On another cassette he records his environs and daily activities in St. Pauli: e.g. the shops and city streets on his delivery route, his friends, or Chernor dealing drugs. Baran plans to send the tape to his sister back home, but in a final sequence the video camera is confiscated as Baran is surrounded by police; the camera continues running and captures his arrest. Presumably, this video letter to his sister will never be sent. Nevertheless, the tape becomes Baran’s attempt to document his experiences and to inscribe himself into the urban and national spaces that deny him legal status and permanent residence. The use of video footage as a metaphor for memory is a common feature of diasporic and exilic cinema and can be found, for example, in the work of Atom Egoyan or Mona Hatoum. The contrast of video footage from Baran’s homeland with the footage he shoots in St. Pauli replicates the bifocality of those who live in diaspora and serves to fuse the present time and space of exile with the past of the homeland. However, the video camera’s grainy images and the ease with which the images can be erased serve as a reminder of how effortlessly the presence of marginalized people can be forgotten. In the final sequences of the film, a police officer shuts off the running video camera and the battery indicator flashes, showing that the camera will soon be out of power. This underscores what the viewers have long suspected: namely that there is no viable future for Baran and Chernor in Germany, that they will be deported, and erased from public memory. The use of video footage not only acts as a metaphor for memory, but also allows for changes in narrative point of view. By inserting video shot by a number of diegetic characters—Baran’s cousin, Baran, and Alma, a refugee from the former Yugoslavia—the film offers multiple perspectives

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beyond the single, omniscient narrative style. Many clips offer us Baran’s point of view and therefore provide insight into his character and state of mind. But the video is also a collective product and thus connects Baran and his family, separated by geographical distance, but also Alma and Baran, who come from different national, linguistic and ethnic communities, but share a common experience of exile. The penultimate sequence, which cuts to the video footage of Baran’s arrest as it is captured on the video camera, offers yet another perspective. Here ostensibly no one is recording; the camera is left running and an extreme close-up shows Baran’s face pressed into the roof of a police cruiser. With no apparent cameraman, and presumably no one to receive the camera after Baran’s arrest, the audience becomes the sole witness of this intimate footage of Baran’s detainment. This clip thus acts as a kind of video message to the viewers, prompting them to consider how they might be implicated in the broader politics of citizenship rights, immigration policies, and transnational networks and power relations. With its explicit references to two major military conflicts, namely Kurdish-Turkish clashes and the war in the former Yugoslavia, the film clearly rejects popular notions of an increasingly borderless world and shows how boundaries are not easily crossed by the disenfranchised. On the one hand, the film highlights how goods, capital and images cross borders: numerous shots in the Hamburger Hafen of container ships suggest transnational trade; Baran’s main connection to his family consists of the videotaped images sent to him from relatives back home; Alma recalls how she experienced the final phases of the war in her former homeland through television broadcasts. On the other hand, the film simultaneously shows how national governments are vigilantly enforcing immigration laws.18 And while forging a new home in ‘Fortress Europe’ is an insurmountable challenge, for many in this film there is equally no hope of return to the former homeland. Home thus exists in memory only, symbolized by repeated shots of visual images shown in the characters’ temporary residences —e.g. Alma’s poster of Sarajevo, or Baran’s and Chernor’s family photographs. Moreover, while numerous inter-ethnic allegiances are formed, the film shows how life in urban poor, ethnically mixed areas is not necessarily conducive to the sort of hybrid identifications that are often enthusiastically discussed in the fields of cultural studies and postcolonial 18

See also David Morley who discusses various critics of Kenichi Ohmae’s notion of a “borderless world” and notes: “one could argue that, in terms of immigration controls, people are now more tied to their country of birth than at any time this century” (225-6).

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theory. As David Morley, citing Manuel Castells, puts it, “in the contemporary city, we are increasingly confronted by ‘a variety of social universes, whose fundamental characteristics are their fragmentation, the sharp definition of their boundaries, and the low level of communication with other such universes” (238). This is best illustrated in the mistrust that the racially-mixed relationship between Baran and Chernor creates amongst both their Kurdish and African compatriots. Baran’s boss refuses to give Chernor a job, in part because he has no legal status in Germany, but also because he is black. Chernor’s boss is similarly contemptuous of Baran and expresses disbelief that Chernor has befriended a “blanc.” Turkish and Kurdish national sentiments collide when a drunken customer at the Kebab restaurant requests the music of Turkish folksinger, Müslüm Gürses. Haydar refuses and tells Baran to continue with Kurdish music. Significantly, the film also dispels notions of homogenous and harmonious diasporic communities. It shows how separate universes are created even within ethnic groups when apparently distant conflicts are reterritorialised, as evidenced by the tensions between various factions of the Kurdish independence movement that have all been transplanted to the neighbourhood of St. Pauli. Chernor’s obvious homosexuality also creates a rift between himself and other African migrants.19 While sexual identities are not explored in any depth in this film, homosexuality adds another layer of alterity and further complicates notions of difference. Chernor is triply marginalized by his status as an illegal migrant, by race, and by his sexual orientation; his attempts to create any sense of home and security are thus shown to be the most difficult. Unlike Baran who lives relatively peacefully with his cousin, Chernor is subjected to homophobic aggression in his shared apartment. By the film’s end, as Baran and Chernor are arrested, it is clear that any hope to forge new homes in such a hostile environment is lost. Importantly, though, not only migrants are displaced in this film. Yavuz draws connections between the migrant population and the German underclass through the figure of Käptn, the man who first introduces Baran and Chernor. A former sailor, Käptn is the very symbol of a transitory lifestyle. He is now literally homeless, living on the streets in St. Pauli.20 The film thus shows how, for the disenfranchised, the fixity and security of home also do not exist. This is reinforced by the film’s depiction of dwelling spaces and family units: individuals live in barren, 19

The diversity of the African diaspora is further underscored by the linguistic mix of English and French that is spoken in the film. 20 Käptn is also identified as homosexual, thus linking him further to the two main characters, Baran and Chernor, and adding to his marginalized status in the film.

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makeshift apartments; families are dysfunctional and estranged. Kleine Freiheit thus depicts contemporary poor, urban society as a world without stable homes. While the relationship between Baran and Chernor illustrates the potential for companionship and solidarity across racial, ethnic or national boundaries, this hope is lost when the men are arrested, suggesting that private solutions are insufficient to surmount the greater political problems of poverty, dislocation, migration policy or citizenship rights.

A New Sense of Homelessness With their sober reflections on sociopolitical disparity, poverty and migration, these films clearly emphasize not the potential pleasures of hybridity, but the gaps between this potential and the reality—for some— of the material hardships of dislocation. Nevertheless, Yavuz is careful not to resort to notions of binary oppositions between cultures. By extending the field of representation to include various marginalized groups, including German nationals, Yavuz infuses scenarios familiar from films of the 1970s and 1980s—confinement, claustrophobic spaces, longing for home—with a new complexity. Homelessness, both figurative and literal, is experienced in these two films not only by migrants, but by ethnic Germans as well. Both Kim and Käptn are, to varying degrees, without proper homes, and thus shed light on the increasing insecurity in spheres of work and life, not only for migrants and sans-papiers, but as a general condition for many late 20th- and 21st-century subjects. Homelessness becomes a metaphor for the mass phenomenon of unemployment, precarity of work and dislocation experienced by diverse groups. The vigilant control of national, ethnic and sexual boundaries that takes place in these films can by extension be seen as an expression of a nostalgic desire for a rootedness and fixity that does not exist. The various communities portrayed are shown to consist of highly fragmented groups with as many differences as similarities, where senses of belonging other than ethnic or national origins encourage multiple and shifting allegiances across cultural boundaries. Yavuz’s Aprilkinder and Kleine Freiheit thus challenge the viewer to consider the complexities of concepts of home, including how home is most often an exclusive concept, restricted by factors including ethnicity, race, wealth, class, gender, sexuality, and politics. From this perspective, home is an eternally elusive goal in Yavuz’s films, where old homes have long been lost and the hope to forge new ones is endlessly deferred amidst social conditions that limit the forms of cooperation that are possible. While the shot of the poster for

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“Global Action – Local Congress” visible in Kleine Freiheit alludes to emerging forms of resistance and political organization, the films offer no concrete solutions, suggesting instead that strategies for social action must be newly invented. While Yavuz’ political engagement may suggest links to the traditions of New German Cinema, constellations of (un)employment, dislocation, poverty, and homelessness in urban environments can be found in socially-committed films in a variety of national contexts. The eclectic mix of stylistic inspiration visible in his films further complicates any attempt to subsume his work in simple national categories. It is perhaps in terms of form—in the mix of social-realist and “accented” aesthetics, citations of popular UFA or Italian neorealist cinema, Hamburg settings, international casts, multilingual dialogue, Turkish and Kurdish film music—that the potentials of hybridity are ultimately realized. Rather than fitting easily into domestic categories, Yavuz is ‘at home’ in more transnational filmmaking traditions, underscoring that transnational dimensions are not “anchored in the biography of the filmmakers” but in filmmaking practices that are driven by “sensitivity to the production and consumption of films in conditions of transnationality, liminality, mulitculturality, multifocality, and syncretism” (Gemünden 182; Naficy, “Phobic Spaces” 121). Far from simply ‘enriching’ homegrown traditions, Yavuz’ films help problematize notions of a national cinema while at the same time considering both national and global transformations and interrogating the very notion of home itself.

Works Cited Adelson, Leslie. “Opposing Oppositions: Turkish-German Questions in Contemporary German Studies.” German Studies Review. 17.2 (1994): 305-330. —. The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature: Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. —. “Touching Tales of Turks, Germans and Jews: Cultural Alterity, Historical Narrative, and Literary Riddles for the 1990s.” New German Critique. 80 (2000): 93-124. Beier, Lars-Olav and Mattias Matussek. “Erst mit zwei Frauen wurde die Geschichte sexy.” Spiegel Online. 23 September 2007. 1 May 2008. .

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Bloom, Peter. “Beur Cinema and the Politics of Location: French Immigration Politics and the Naming of a Film Movement.” Social Identities. 5.4 (1999): 469-87. Borcholte, Andreas. “Fatih Fassbinder.” Spiegel Online. 23 May 2007. 1 May 2008. . Buder, Bernd. “Die Dokumentation ‘Close-Up Kurdistan’ von Yüksel Yavuz.” Freitag. 49. 7 December 2007. 1 May 2008. . Fachinger, Petra. “A New Kind of Creative Energy: Yadé Kara’s Selam Berlin and Fatih Akin’s Kurz und schmerzlos and Gegen die Wand.” German Life and Letters. 60.2 (2007): 243-260. Gallagher, Jessica. “The Limitation of Urban Space in Thomas Arslan’s Berlin Trilogy.” Seminar. 42.3 (2006): 337-352. Gemünden, Gerd. “Hollywood in Altona: Minority Cinema and the Transnational Imagination.” German Pop Culture: How “American” Is It? Ed. Agnes C. Mueller. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 180-190. Göktürk, Deniz. “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema.” The German Cinema Book. Ed. Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter and Deniz Göktürk. London: British Film Institute, 2002. 131-139. —. “Strangers in Disguise: Role-Play beyond Identity Politics in Anarchic Film Comedy.” New German Critique. 92 (2004): 100-122. —. “Turkish Delight – German Fright: Migrant Identities in Transnational Cinema.” Transnational Communities Programme—Working Paper Series. 1 June 2008. . —. “Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema.” Spaces in European Cinema. Ed. Myrto Konstantarakos. Exeter; Portland: intellect, 2000. 64-76. —. “Yüksel Yavuz’s Kleine Freiheit / A Little Bit of Freedom” TRANSIT. 1.1 (2005): http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucbgerman/transit/vol1/iss1/art50915. Hake, Sabine. German National Cinema. London; New York: Routledge, 2002. Halle, Randall. “Aufgehoben: Ensembles of Transnational Cinema.” New German Critique. 87 (2002): 7-46. Kiontke, Jürgen. “O Mann, Realität! Aus dem wirklichen Hamburg: Aprilkinder von Yüksel Yavuz.” Jungle World. 27 January 1999. 1 May 2008. .

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—. “Sechs Qm in Germanistan. Der Regisseur Yüksel Yavuz und sein Film Aprilkinder.” Filmforum. Zeitschrift für Film und andere Künste. 16.1 (1999): 12-14. Kulao÷lu, Tunçay. “Der neue ‘deutsche’ Film ist ‘türkisch’? Eine neue Generation bringt Leben in die Filmlandschaft.” Filmforum. Zeitschrift für Film und andere Künste. 16 (1999): 8-11. Lay, Samantha. “Good Intentions, High Hopes and Low Budgets: Contemporary Social Realist Film-making in Britain.” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film. 5.3 (2007): 231-244. Maffeis, Stefania. “Ich bin vom Traum meiner Mutter ausgegangen: Interview an Yüksel Yavuz.” Jura Gentium Cinema. 1 January 2004. 1 May 2008. . Martenstein, Harald. “Ich Chef, du Turnschuh. Filme mit doppelter Staatsbürgerschaft: türkisches Kino auf dem Weg in die deutsche Gegenwart.” Der Tagesspiegel. 11 February 1999. 31. Mennel, Barbara. “Bruce Lee in Kreuzberg and Scarface in Altona: Transnational Auteurism and Ghettocentrism in Thomas Arslan’s Brothers and Sisters and Fatih Akin’s Short Sharp Shock.” New German Critique. 87 (2002): 133-156. Morley, David. Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. London; New York: Routledge, 2000. Murray Levine, Alison J. “Mapping Beur Cinema in the New Millenium.” Journal of Film and Video. 60.3-4 (2008): 42-59. Naficy, Hamid. An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. —. “Phobic Spaces and Liminal Panics: Independent Transnational Film Genre.” Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary. Ed. Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996. 119-144. Reinicke, Stefan. Rev. of Aprilkinder. epd Film. Nr. 2. February 1999. 1 June 2008. . Rentschler, Eric. “From new German Cinema to the Post-Wall Cinema of Consensus.” Cinema and Nation. Ed. Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie. New York: Routledge, 2000. 260-277. Steyerl, Hito. “Gaps and Potentials: The Exhibition Heimat Kunst— Migrant Culture as an Allegory of the Global Market.” New German Critique. 92 (2004): 159-168. Tokmak, Seyfettin. “Yüksel Yavuz: Gurbette Yüksel(en) Türk Sinemas.” Mevsimsiz. 1 June 2008. .

WEDDING SCENES AS METAPHORS FOR HOMELAND1 ÖZGÜR YAREN

As a global fact, migration has several distinctive patterns which are followed by migrating people from different parts of the world. These patterns explain the act of migration through migrants, their relation with their homeland and hosting society, their past and present, their concerns, problems and hopes. The motives of migration indicate specific patterns which could be utilized to understand the phenomenon through categorizing according to its different types. We may draw a distinction between diasporas/exiles whom are banished from their lands either collectively or individually, post-colonial migrants whom are attracted by their colonials, and economically driven labor migrants, displaced for a better, more prosperous life. This essay relies on the premise that a similar distinction could be applied to migrant films. As a mode of transnational cinema, growing numbers and variety of migrant films in last three decades lead us to consider migrant cinema as a concrete category, more concrete than many ‘national’ cinemas, we may add. Different migration contexts inspire different film practices and strategies. The migration categories such as diasporas/exiles, postcolonials and labor migrants are open to criticism for being a synthetic distinction, ambiguity or overlapping between different categories (Yaren, 2008:12). Hamid Naficy articulates a different (yet, similar) distinction, relying on different migration motifs. He deals with “exile”, “diasporic”, “post-colonial ethnic and identity filmmakers” under separate titles but

1 I would like to thank to Deniz Göktürk, Anton Kaes, Annika Orich, Sultan Doughan, Nicholas Baer, Erik Born, and others who contributed to the fruitful discussions at the workshop of Multicultural Germany Project in University of California, Berkeley at fall 2011. Their valuable contributions and critiques helped me to revise this paper.

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instead of considering migrant cinema under this structure, he prefers to handle “accented cinema” (as he refers) through classifying common motifs on the modes of production, form and content of the films (Naficy:2001). The nature of categorization is arguable in every sense. One can question the lines drawn between each category, furthermore these categories are not static or ahistorical. Each has historical progression lines converging or differing from other lines over time. Apart from their specific or unique characteristics, these categories have also intertwined on many levels. Yet, this distinction is useful in that it helps us grasp the different aspects of the fact. It also helps us to consider migrant cinema as an autonomous category with specific characteristics and historical progression. As the national cinema debates have taught us, a perfect model of taxonomy is not possible, and perhaps not essential, either. In this particular taxonomy, each category has specific characteristics. Brief descriptions of these categories and corresponding film practices would clarify our purposes.

Diaspora/Exiles, Post-colonials and Labour Migrants There is an ongoing debate about the scope of the term diaspora. The narrow and strict interpretation such as William Safrans’s, refers to the classical usage of the term, and relates to characteristics of classical diasporas (Jews, Greeks, Armenians) as sporadic communities who have strong relations with their homeland, or the idea of it, at the collective level (Safran, 1991: 83-84). Wider interpretations tend to enlarge the term’s scope to all kind of “communities of transnational moment” (Clifford, 1994:303). While diaspora is mostly associated with the enforced displacement of a community, exile is often accepted as the individual level of this experience. Whether on an individual or collective basis, both exile and diaspora require strong emotional relations with homeland and in this nature they differ from other types of migration. Many researchers believe that the efforts to create a substitutional homeland, to gather and communicate among the community, and to preserve the collective identity maintain a creative potential for diasporas and exiles (Kristeva, 1986; Peters, 1999; Naficy, 2000, 2001; Tsagarousianou, 2004). Regarding the production mode, diaspora/exile cinema differentiates itself by specific political commitment and solidaristic economy. Distribution and exhibition of the films mostly depend on collective efforts of the community (Yaren, 2008:72-77). On the grounds of the problematic relation with the lost homeland, diasporic/exilic narrations are

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marked by nostalgia, melancholia and in some cases trauma and mourning. The same reason renders the idealization of the homeland and lost golden era as frequent themes of diaspora/exile narrations. Post-colonial migrants have a unique and complex relation with their former colonial hosts. This relation is irreducible to mere resentful feelings of colonized people against their colonials. In many situations, national identity and pride of post-colonial societies mixes with feelings of inferiority and envy. Postcolonialism is “about the possibility and methods of hearing or recovering the experiences of the colonized (in literary terms, to broaden the range of texts that are studied to include more contributions representing the experiences of colonized peoples) (Sidaway, 2000:594). In line with this description, post-colonial narrations provide basis for resistance against the colonialist mind and its recent appendices, as well as those national independence movements of the Third World which suppress every possible liberating action, and resume the inequalities of the society under the guise of the essentiality of national independence. Therefore, in these narrations it is easy to track a “Post-Third-Worldist” disappointment of the subordinates of post-colonial moment (Shohat, 2004:62). North African immigrants in France or South Asians in Britain follow general patterns of labour migration, but their post-colonial relation with their hosting society complicate the triangular relation of the immigrant, homeland and host country. While a post-colonialist political stance evolves from unifying under a post-colonial monotype flag (such as Black people in Britain or Beur in France) to the specification of ethnic and cultural microcosms, hybridity and particularly hybrid identity representations in sexual sphere are utilized as allegories of migration in post-colonial films along with labor migration films (Yaren, 2008:13). Reverting the narrations by nullifying imperialist, colonialist, patriarchal/sexist and discriminatory clichés and stereotypes is another resistance strategy visible in many post-colonial narration. Labour migration in Europe began with the post-war era economic boom, as in the case of Germany between 1955-1973, primarily through guest worker programs initiated with bilateral recruitment agreements with peripheral countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia. These programs proposed temporary contracts, and the foreign workers were expected to return home in a few years, therefore, they were called gastarbeiter (guest worker). But by 1970’s, particularly in the case of Turkish workers in Germany, the temporariness implied by the term soon turned into irreversible permanency, when guest workers did not return

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home but instead brought their families and relatives to the hosting countries. Labour migrants’ relations with their homeland are essentially different and less problematic, compared with the forcibly displaced communities, without post-colonial ties with the hosting society, or unresolved issues regarding their homeland. Lacking of a collective political agenda, labour migrants are less organized and less visible among other immigrant communities (Yaren, 2008:114). In the case of Turkish migrants in Germany, the major problem is not about past and homeland but it is about presence and the hosting land. The social and political tensions in migrant countries involve debates over integration and assimilation, the fear of loosing identity, reluctance to participate the public sphere, the poisonous effects of xenophobia and discrimination, unemployment, and opportunity inequality. Particularly the first generation of migrant representations in the literature and cinema in particular dealt with the problems of migrants, who were depicted as “silent”, passive subjects and victims of discrimination and exploitation. Socially aware filmmakers of New German Cinema, such as Fassbinder with his pioneer migrant film Angst Essen Seele Auf (1974) led the trend. Early migrant films, called “cinema of duty” (Malik, 1996), regarding their socially aware stance, dealt with victimizing themes of silent migrants, depicting split worlds of subaltern migrants and exploiting, discriminating Europeans. Today these themes have been largely replaced by the acclamation of hybridity in every possible manner, while subaltern roles pass to illegal aliens, who risk their life to penetrate fortress Europe, and migrant victims of patriarchalism, honor killings, religious pressure and machismo within migrant communities. Films of “duty” were mostly socially aware films, reflecting the hierarchical aspect of hosting societies. Decades later, starting with late 90's, as filmmakers among migrants flourished, migrant film practices were able to enjoy a rich variety of production modes, themes and films. Tracing common motifs and tropes repeated in various migrant films would allow us to create valid generalizations for migrant cinema. Apart from genre conventions, we may argue about tropes, which are specific to migrant cinema. The alienated newcomer becoming friends with the troubled and excluded child at school is originally a youth film convention, but we can encounter the same convention in migrant films, as well.2 What Naficy does in his work “An Accented Cinema”, is to classify migrant films according to specific tropes, such as “Epistolary Narratives”, 2

As in the examples of En Garde (Ayúe Polat, 2004) and Zozo (Josef Fares, 2005).

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“Imagined Homeland”, “Claustrophobia”, and “Journeying, border crossing” (Yaren, 2008:14). Considering their frequency, we can simply add wedding scenes with their specific functions in migrant films into the designated list of Naficy’s. Scrutinizing this overused theme in migrant films gives us a broad idea about the motive behind their frequent utilization. Wedding ceremonies and feasts themselves are one of a very few collective folkloric manifestations that remained in urban life. According to Walter Edwards, a wedding could be interpreted as a rite of passage, as a ritual that marks the social transition of the principals by reorienting the way they are perceived in the minds of the participants. By associating the bride and groom with ideal images of the roles of husband and wife, for example, or by calling attention to the termination of their former status as children, the wedding firmly locates them in their new identities as married persons (1987:76-77). But wedding feasts are not mere transition rituals for the marrying couple. They also serve as a uniting occasion for the community. And among displaced communities, perhaps wedding ceremonies are the only tangible manifestations of a sort of cultural/folkloric inheritance (along with religious practices). Klebe notes that weddings, as well as henna and circumcision feasts are celebrated in large halls with 500-1000 guests, and they play a great part in maintaining Turkish customs in the German diaspora (2004:168). On some occasions3 the public ritual that made a couple ‘man and wife’ is not the civic wedding at the municipality, nor the religious wedding ceremony, but the wedding feast; a feast where gifts are given to the couple, where at least some drinks are served, where music and dance play a central role and where representatives of both families are present (Timmerman, 2008:591). The unchallenged symbolic weight of wedding feasts renders them a convenient trope for many migrant films. We can argue that, in all these examples, wedding scenes are used as metaphors, transferring the homeland and past into present space and time. Yet, the utilization of this metaphor differs in respect of style and context. My claim is that stylistic and contextual features of wedding scenes could

3

Christian Timmerman who looked into the social trends and habits of a migrant community in Belgium, coming from Emirda÷, a small town in Turkey, found out that many migrant people who marry with a partner from their homeland, complete the civic process and wait for a year for family reunion in Belgium. Only then the wedding feast have been held and the marriage won full legitimacy among the community (2008:591 ff).

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be interrelated with different motives of displacement among migrant communities dealt within a given film. In this respect, wedding scenes are perfect keys to read about the relation between migrant communities and their homeland. Films dealing with different migrant communities such as post-colonial communities, Diaspora/exiles or economically-driven migrants, manifest this relation with well-matched stylistic and contextual choices in their wedding scenes.

Postcolonial Moment of Wedding Nadir Moknèche’s debut, which is an attempt to contemplate on homeland, Le harem de Mmme Osmane (2000) is a pure post-colonialist film, with a long and heavily symbolic sequence of a wedding scene. Born in Paris to Algerian parents, raised in Algiers, and having lived in Paris, New York and Perugia, Moknèche is a truly transnational filmmaker who deals with his homeland. The film Mmme Osmane, and particularly its wedding sequence, manifests many attributes of post-colonial narrations. It not only manifests a discourse of struggling for decolonization but also resists the oppressive government of liberated Algeria. The wedding scene takes place in a literary post-colonial building, a former church in Algeria, now converted to a community hall. The wedding party is a very traditional one, exclusively for women. No men are allowed inside, except the effeminate (therefore harmless) coiffeur character. Our protagonist, Madame Osmane, a westernized character who has also fought for the liberation of Algeria among the mujahideen, complains about “vulgar” folkloric custom of tucking money to the breasts of bride’s mother while she dances. In one particular point, the attendants of this private party protest the curfew. They mock state of emergency and the army’s implementations in Algeria. A post-colonial identity crisis manifests itself in dialogues as in the example of the dialogue between the effeminate coiffeur (resembling an enunch) and the women waiting for their hairdo: -You call this a community hall? -You are really dumb. It’s not a hall, it’s a church. If the French came back… -It’d be cleaner! -But we wash our asses!

In Le harem de Mme Osmane and other post-colonial films, wedding parties are presented as authentic experiences in long sequences which

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include several stages of the event like preparation and dances. In many cases, this experience has been shaped by complex, strange or primitive customs. In Madame Osmane’s wedding scene, the custom of placing money to the bride’s mother’s collar is labeled as being vulgar. In Gurindher Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice (2004), wedding dances are portrayed as being too complicated for foreigners. In Michel Khleifi’s documentary style drama, Wedding at Galilee (1988), rituals are accompanied by folkloric costumes. In Hany Abu Assad’s Rana’s Wedding (2002), since Israeli soldiers held up the registrar at barricades and checkpoints he could not appear at the ceremony until last minute. When he shows up finally, the bride and groom marry in the street, among crumbles and behind the barricades. In all these post-colonial narratives,4 the wedding scenes and sequences are loaded with post-colonial symbols. The people attending these weddings are also the resisting colonized people. The joy of a private, happy event is transformed into a public display against the colonials, while every bit of custom, tradition or folk dance becomes a manifestation of ethnic or national identity.

Swinging Head and Imagining Homeland Since migrants are using wedding imagery as visual means of communication with the folks back home, from the very early pictures taken by gastarbeiters in Germany to wedding videotapes circulating in homeland, and live on-demand broadcasts on satellite channels, weddings are not just rituals but spectacles as well. Reminding Pierre Bourdieu’s seminal study The Social Definition of Photography, Barbara Wolbert states that wedding pictures (and video tapes and DVD’s we may add) are meant to be distributed among those who attended the wedding, and others, in homeland who were not present in the occasion (Wolbert, 2008). The social function of wedding imagery suggests certain codes in the process of picturing and filming. While the bride, eating with full mouth, or smoking a cigarette, should not been pictured, ceremonial cutting of the wedding cake must be recorded (Wolbert, 2008). Because of this set of codes, requirements and restrictions, wedding is not just a ritual to be photographed and recorded, but the very action of photographing or recording is a part of the ritual.

4

Last two films are actually from lands still subjected to colonization, but since they are also resisting against colonizing power, we may classify them under postcolonial narrations as well.

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Video is an essential part of this ritual. And its function is not limited with the circulation after the feast. As we learn from Wolbert, many wedding halls in Germany serve big screens in the hall, broadcasting the event live, for the guests, who are not able to see the whole spectacle from their seats (Wolbert, 2008). Now wedding parties are also broadcasted live or on tape on-demand by satellite TV channels such as Dü÷ün TV. This creates an instant effect of self-reflexivity. Thus the relation with the camera renders the bride and the groom, leading actress and actor, and this whole ritual a performance, visual spectacle for the imagined audience, the late attendees to this event. The circulation of videos does not only serve as memories of a glorious day for the married couple and the rest of the attendees, but they also serve as a newsreel or a reenactment for the ones who were not able to attend the feast. Particularly in homeland they help for a virtual reenactment of the feast, where spectators can comment on the attendees, their dressing, their dancing, join music, even dance and they create a secondary space of the very same ritual. It is as if they attend the feast in Berlin, with a delay (Wolbert, 2001:30-32). So the wedding videos contribute to a transnational experience ignoring the geographic and temporal difference. They help to sustain complex social relations exceeding relative or organizational ties. According to Barbara Wolbert, this is not a transnational migrant circuit but virtual neighborhoods. Media, particularly individual audiovisual media, which responds to individual needs, overcome the temporal and spatial distances. Being well aware of the significance of the spectacular aspect of wedding parties, filmmakers dealing migrants are keen to use wedding scenes. In these films, weddings are substantially removed from old customs left behind. Rituals are largely replaced by dances accompanying hybridized folk music. Yet wedding parties are essential rituals, where and when ties between migrant community and homeland become most tangible. A wedding party is a space and moment that the migrant feels himself at home. It is an opportunity for bracketing the homeland in the daily life experience of the new land. The authenticity of this experience, its resemblance to the homeland experience, is questionable due to various levels of hybridization and remoteness, but the desire for it is obvious. In other words, weddings are experienced as metaphors for the homeland itself. In many cases, filmmakers accentuate these metaphors. In Josef Fares’s Jalla! Jalla! (2000), the wedding scene of the war weary Lebanese migrants in Denmark turns to a grotesque fight scene, resembling the perpetual civil wars in Lebanon. Aram (2002) presents an even more

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remarkable metaphor for the homeland. In the film, Robert Kechichian presents a highly stylized and idealized wedding scene. Distinctive usage of warm color filters, the intact costumes of the attendees dressed in tuxedos and evening dresses, the sleek choreography of professionally modernized folk dances, the harmony between the guests and the wedding hall, where no detail is out of place, render this wedding as an idealized space, lamenting for the lost homeland. In the scene, Turkish intruders stain this idealized ceremony. Talat (reminiscent of Talat Paúa, the organizer of 1915 Armenian deportation and mass massacres), a Mafioso guy who is assigned for a diplomatic mission for cover up, insidiously enters the hall. His evil motivations present a great contrast to the feasting innocent people, but he was punished and murdered before he could perform his villainous plans. In the Freudian sense, Kechichian’s idealized depiction of wedding scene as a metaphor for homeland could be interpreted as a narcissistic identification with the lost object in the state of melancholia (Freud: 2005). Freud makes a distinction between mourning and melancholia, claiming in the former case, one could “overcome after a certain lapse of time” while, the latter could be a pathological reaction after an essential loss (Freud: 2005). The loss of homeland, which is interrelated with traumatic memories of exile and mass massacres in the case of Armenian Diaspora, could lead a reaction in its collective conscious, which is similar to melancholia in Freudian sense. “Emigration is a traumatic event (in the strictly Freudian sense) for whatever reason it is undertaken, and filmmakers of the Diaspora create from a base of latent trauma—the psychic disaster of their own exodus— whether they are aware of it or not” (Jones, 2007). In the case of Turkish migrants, who are essentially considered as economically-driven labor migrants, and their progeny, the relatively deliberate nature of the displacement lessens the extent of this trauma. Nevertheless, this does not mean that economically-driven migration is a trouble-free process. Issues of identification related with integration, the fear of assimilation, the asserted cultural gap between hosting society and migrants problematize the process. Besides, recently swelling waves of xenophobia and Islamophobia in European societies render this process even more complicated. Filmmakers cannot therefore ignore issues of identification, which shapes the relation of migrant with homeland. Fatih Akn, the prominent German-Turkish filmmaker, arranges wedding scenes in a realistic and occasionally grotesque way. He presents a space where the Turkish migrants, once described by John Berger as the ‘silent Turk’, representing an oral void in new land and interpreted by Homi Bhabha as “an emblem of displacement and incompatibility, which

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stands somewhat at odds with his theoretical explorations of hybridity and liminality” (Berger, 1976; Bhabha, 1993:315-317; Göktürk, 2002:248) temporarily take over to simulate homeland, far from the original homeland. In wedding halls, which are typically pretentiously ornamented large indoor spaces, migrants outnumber the others, whom now have guest status or are strangers. They set the codes for dressing, eating, drinking, and having fun, as well as implementing social solidarity. Social codes and the hierarchy of the hosting land fall into a partial abeyance, and wedding party shows somewhat carnivalesque characteristics. Yet the firm social codes of homeland are not totally dismissed. In the Turkish wedding of Kurz und Schmerzlos (Fatih Akn, 1998), young women use the ladies’ restroom to smoke. Gabriel gets angry with his best friend, Costa because he didn’t dress properly. All the guests conform to the ritual of attaching banknotes to the collars of the groom and bride. In Gegen Die Wand (Fatih Akn, 2004) wedding begins with smooth western music while all the guests sit on tables calmly applauding the formally dancing couple. Soon, however, the repressed identity of the wedding returns, and slow rhythms give way to cheerful oriental tunes, the crowd fills the dancing floor, dances enthusiastically. Loosened neckties, banknotes and gold coins are attached to grooms jacket collar, and subtly erotic dancing figures catch the eye. From the first reserved moments to the vigorous peak, a hand-held camera witnesses the wedding, boosting verisimilitude by creating an amateur wedding tape effect. In Feo Aladag’s migrant melodrama Die Fremde (2010), wedding scene is a clash zone where the Turkish migrant heroine, Umay struggles both for independence and family approval. Her fight is against traditions and patriarchalism. Umay tries to break up her sister’s wedding party, her first attempt is driven back by her younger brother, but her second attempt, where she reaches the band stage and loudly articulates her words, mired down by her elder brother’s violent intervention: - I have a son. His name is Cem. He's a good boy. But, because he's my son, he's not wanted here. As a woman I decided to live alone. I have tainted your honor. I have destroyed my family's dignity. And now my son is without a family, too. Baba, you used to say “blood is thicker than water”. That, “we are only strong together”. Father!...

Die Fremde presents the community pressure, rumor and social exclusion among Turkish Gemeinschaft in Germany. Community pressure explains the family’s denial of their daughter Umay, after she leaves her husband and asks to return back to her home. The very same reason leads the family to tend to honour killing. Die Fremde, which positions

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community pressure to the center of the narration and employs it as the motive for every poisonous action of Umay’s family, serves the scene of the wedding of Umay’s young sister as a space for Umay to confront the community and manifest her stance. But even her confrontation tends to transform into an effort to persuade her family, in particular her father, to accept her. Anno Saul’s Kebab Connection (2004), on the other hand, is a feel good movie which is in absolute contrast with Die Fremde. Although both films are alike in evoking clichés of their genres, along with stereotypic migrant characters and cultural difference problems associated with migrants, Kebab Connection pushes for a last minute reconciliation and solution to obtain the necessary happy end. Saul’s wedding scene, which takes place in a kebab joint, works as a stage for reconciliation and consolidation among the protagonist, Ibo, the Turkish migrant groom, and all the people around him, including Titzie, the German bride, and Ibo’s parents. It’s a stage where finally amateur filmmaker Ibo is recognized by a German film producer and accepted by his father, who, at first does not approve his son marrying a German girl. Meantime, the young couple’s happy day brings an opportunity for Ibo’s uncle, who runs the kebab joint, to make up with his rival running a Greek Tavern across the street. The wedding scene in Kebab Connection serves to create a happy ending for the young migrant generation’s struggle against tradition and rigid family values in favor of recognition and integration. Two other migrant comedies, Meine verrückte türkische Hochzeit (Stefan Holtz, 2006) and Evet, Ich Will (Sinan Akkuú, 2008) both focus on mixed marriages and create laughter out of the obscure, rigid customs of migrant Turkish families, and the German failure in interpreting this strange culture. Both Holtz’s adaptation of My Big Fat Greek Wedding for TV and Akkuú’s more complex art house film displays a German man, trying to marry a girl from a Turkish migrant family and struggling to gain the family’s approval. This is a hard task since Turkish migrant families tend to maintain to their customs and religion. For a German man, an approval could be only in return for fulfilling irrational requests of the Turkish family, such as converting to Islam and more concretely, agreeing to circumcision. Migrant heroes and heroines, having an irrepressible desire for family approval seem like the common ground of Turkish migrant films. Even if these characters cease fulfilling cultural observances, and even if they admit the anachronism of these pointless customs, family approval is the most essential condition for next generation of migrants who are prepared to make mixed marriages. Nevertheless, families tend to hold on to their

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so-called cultural roots. In the case of fathers, whether grotesquely conservative or proudly integrated, it is out of the question to challenge or even to compromise over their traditional customs. Principally any form of mixture is undesired and any kind of deviation from customs or life style is absolutely branded as heretic. Evet, Ich will, extends this formula to several possible variations of the misfits of desiring each other: A Kurdish migrant man with a religious Sunnite (an orthodox sect of Islam) family, and a traditional Turkish migrant girl with a leftist, secular, Alawite father; a German-Turkish gay couple and a homophobic Turkish family; a black man and a Turkish girl; and a naïve peasant guy from homeland Turkey who wants to find a beautiful Turkish girl to reside with him in Germany, and a romantic candidate who is a long way from his ideal. Along with Gegen die Wand, these migrant comedies give an important role to the scenes where the German side asks for the girl’s family’s consent. In each of these three stories, the ceremonial moment of asking for the girl from her family stresses the cultural tension of the misfits. Language barrier and cultural barrier, misunderstandings, deception, prejudgments, terms of approval, a must have template of statement (“with the command of god and words of prophet…”) and lapses around it, all demonstrate the difficulty of, if not the impossibility of negotiation.

Conclusion The symbolic weight of weddings as means for cultural manifestation renders them unrivalled moments for considering identity, and metaphors for the homeland where it is required. In several cases, presentations of weddings in cinema skillfully utilize this symbolic weight and metaphoric disposition. This is visible in post-colonial wedding scenes, claiming cultural authenticity by differentiation from the colonials, and transferring the festivity to a carnivalesque mockery of the colonials, as well as the disappointing post-liberation governments. The idealized image of the homeland and ‘narcissistic image of the self’ are traits of the diaspora/exile wedding scene. In Aram, unresolved issues of forced displacement are brought up in the present by the ghost of Talat, a villainous figure from history who is embodied as a contemporary villain in a wedding hall. Turkish experience of creating metaphor does not involve referring to past as being wronged, but rather referring to it as a source of tradition and observances. The identity crisis of Turkish migrants as economicallydriven labor migrants and their progenies is more about here and now,

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related to the complexity of integration and assimilation in the face of cultural differences and hardening trends of indigenous rejection. Immigration to Europe has changed the face of the continent irrevocably. Neither the swelling xenophobic anxiety of European societies, nor ultra nationalist/populist right wing parties profiting from these anxieties with discourses of “fortress Europe”, are not able to alter this fact, for good. Immigrants and indigenous societies, hyphenated or hybridized identities, integrated or resisting newcomers have shaped the new face of Europe. “A complex phenomenon like today’s ‘Europe’ cannot be described or experienced as a whole but only as a site of negotiation over identity” (Loshitzky, 2010:8). This segmented transnational structure is a disturbing picture for those who deny the possibility of negotiation, such as Chancellor Angela Merkel, proclaiming that the “attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have utterly failed”.5 Yosefa Loshitzky accurately describes the disturbing element of this complexity: As forms of transnationalism, diaspora and exile constitute domains of political and cultural otherness that challenge the nation-state and its claim to the exclusive representation of some “essential” collectivity, which manifests a national “self.” The fact that the formation of exilic and diasporic “others” is currently on the rise, on a global and historically unprecedented scale, makes that “otherness” all the more menacing to the western liberal nation-state (Loshitzky, 2010:7-8).

The other side of this equation is about anxieties of being assimilated and reluctance to accept integration. This in turn brings a state of freeze in every possible aspect related to identity. In many cases, this frozen attitude can exceed a reactionary stance manifesting itself by cultural and religious consolidation. “Cultural observances also freeze in time at the moment of migration, reduced to extravagant displays of loyalty” (Jones, 2007). Meine verrückte türkische Hochzeit and Evet, Ich Will both mock this state of freeze by Turkish migrant families, demanding their prospective grooms fulfill their seemingly bizarre observances, such as being circumcised, sacrificing an animal and fasting. These films successfully perform “national identities with self-conscious irony” (Göktürk, 2002:255) and they effusively exploit the comedy emerging from failing attempts at or reluctance in cultural negotiations, which are followed by wedding party scenes representing a space for reconciliation. The characters of these comedies suffer a lot before reaching the conventional 5

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451 (17 October 2010).

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happy ending of the genre, leaving unanswered questions about the nature of negotiation, and the extent to which it is possible.

Bibliography Berger, John (1976), Yedinci Adam (Seventh Man), Cevat Çapan (trans.), østanbul:Cem Yaynlar. Bhabha, Homi (1993), “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation” in Homi Bahbha (ed.), Nation and Narration, London:Routledge pp. 291-322. Clifford, James (1994), “Diasporas”, Cultural Anthropology, 9(3): 302338. Edwards, Walter (1987), “The Commercialized Wedding as Ritual: A Window on Social Values” in Journal of Japanese Studies, 13(1):5178. Freud, Sigmund (2005), “Mourning and Melancholia” On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia (1917), Michael Hulse (trans.), London: Penguin, pp. 201-218. Göktürk, Deniz (2002), “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish-German Traffic in Cinema”, The German Cinema Book (eds.) Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter and Deniz Göktürk, London:BFI pp. 248-256. Jones, Gareth (2007), “An Inner Exodus: The Many Diasporas of Balkan Cinema”, Cineaste, 32:3 http://www.cineaste.com/articles/an-innerexodus.htm Klebe, Dorit (2004), “Kanak Attak in Germany: A Multiethnic Network of Youths Employing Musical Forms of Expression”, in Manifold Identities:Studies on Music and Minorities, Ursula Hemetek et al. (ed.) 162-180. Kristeva, Julia (1986), “A New Type of Intellectual: The Dissident”, The Kristeva Reader, Toril Moi (ed.), NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 292-300. Loshitzky, Yosefa (2010), Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema, Indiana: Indiana UP. Malik, Sarita (1996), "Beyond 'The Cinema of Duty'? The Pleasures of Hybridity: Black British Film of the 1980s and 1990s", Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema, Andrew Higson (ed.), London:Cassell, pp. 202-215. Monaco, James (2000), How to Read a Film? The World of Movies, Media and Multimedia, New York: Oxford UP. Naficy, Hamid (2000), “Phobic Spaces and Liminal Panics: Independent Transnational Film Genre”, Global/Local: Cultural Production and the

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Transnational Imaginary, Rob Wilson & Wimal Dissanayake (ed.), Duke University Press, pp. 119-144. Naficy, Hamid (2001), An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton, London: Princeton UP. Peters, John Durham (1999), “Exile, Nomadism, Diaspora: The Stakes of Mobility in the Western Canon”, Home, Exile Homeland: Film Media and the Politics of Place, Hamid Naficy (ed.), London, NY:Routledge, pp. 17-41. Safran, William (1991), “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return”, Diaspora 1(1):83-99. Shohat, Ella (2004), “Post-Third-Worldist Culture: Gender, Nation, and the Cinema”, Rethinking Third Cinema, Anthony R. Guneratne & Wimal Dissanayake (ed.), London, NY: Routledge, pp. 51-78. Sidaway, James D. (2000), “Postcolonial Geographies: An Exploratory Essay”, Progress in Human Geography, 24(4): 591–612. Timmerman, Christiane. (2008), “Marriage in a -Culture of MigrationEmirdag Marrying into Flanders”, European Review, 16(04):585-594. Tsagarousianou, Roza (2004), “Rethinking the concept of diaspora: mobility, connectivity and communication in a globalised world” Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (University of Westminster), 1(1): 52-66. Wolbert, Barbara (2001), ‘The Visual Production of Locality: Turkish Family Pictures, Migration, and the Creation of Virtual Neighborhoods’, Visual Anthropology Review, 1(1):21 – 35. —. (2008), ‘Ein Fest für die Kamera: Hochzeitsvideos und virtuelle Nachbarschaften’, Hochzeitskultur und Mode von 1800 bis heute: eine deutsch-türkische Begegnung, Wolfgang E. Weick, Alfried Wieczorek, et al. (eds). Publikationen der Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Band 33. Yaren, Özgür (2008), Altyazılı Rüyalar: Avrupa Göçmen Sineması, Ankara:De Ki.

Films Mentioned Angst Essen Seele Auf (R. W. Fassbinder, 1974) Aram (Robert Kechichian, 2002) Beautiful People (Jasmin Dizdar, 1999) Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, 2002) Bride and Prejudice (Gurinder Chadha, 2004) Die Fremde (Feo Aladag, 2010) En Garde (Ayúe Polat, 2004) Evet. Ich Will (Sinan Akkuú, 2008)

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Gegen die Wand (Fatih Akn, 2004) Jalla! Jalla! (Josef Fares, 2000) Kebab Connection (Anno Saul, 2004) Kurz und Schmerzlos (Fatih Akn, 1998) Le harem de Mmme Osmane (Nadir Moknèche, 2000) Meine verrückte türkische Hochzeit (Stefan Holtz, 2006) Rana’s Wedding (Hany Abu Assad, 2002) Urs Al-jalil / Wedding at Galilee (Michel Khleifi, 1988) Zozo (Josef Fares, 2005)

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CENTRE AND PERIPHERY: FILM PRACTICES AMONG THE TURKISH DIASPORA IN ANTWERP KEVIN SMETS, PHILIPPE MEERS, ROEL VANDE WINKEL AND SOFIE VAN BAUWEL

Introduction The revival of popular Turkish cinema has been one of the most noteworthy phenomena in the contemporary media industry of the region (Behlil 2010). From a marginal output in the 1980s and early 1990s, Turkish film production has risen to unprecedented heights, highlighted by mounting investments and domestic box office results. While significant academic attention has been paid to this phenomenon, the proliferation of popular Turkish film screenings outside Turkey, especially in European theatres, is less known. This paper, which draws from the research results of the ‘Cinema & Diaspora’ project1, explores Turkish film screenings in Antwerp (Belgium) as a case study of diasporic film culture, looking at the structural, industry-related aspects, as well as audience reception of these films. Both perspectives have been dealt with separately with regards to diasporas, for instance in research on the global Bollywood industry (e.g. Alessandrini 2001) or in reception studies among diasporic communities (e.g. Thornley 2009). However, a combined perspective has rarely been applied, although scholars from different backgrounds have argued in favor of the integration of structural media research and audience studies (e.g. Murdock & Golding 2005). In this study, we make such an integration by first mapping the different patterns that constitute the offer 1

Cinema and diaspora. A comparative study into ethnic film cultures in Antwerp: Indian, North African, Turkish and Jewish cinema. BOF UA Research Fund 20082012 and Research Foundation Flanders 2009-2012. More information on http://www.ua.ac.be/cinemaendiaspora.

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of Turkish films in Europe and in Antwerp (Belgium) in particular, and then investigating audience experiences and the socially contextualized reception of Turkish films by the Turkish diaspora in Antwerp. After broadly sketching Turkish film culture in Antwerp, this paper discusses the methodological framework of the study and then focuses on the results of one specific part of it, i.e. an audience survey conducted among viewers of Turkish films at the Metropolis multiplex (2010-2011). Next, we link these results to an exploratory, inductive conceptualization of the bridging and bonding group processes of film practices among the Turkish diaspora in Antwerp. The subject of this case study is the Turkish community in the Belgian city of Antwerp, which is the country’s second largest city (approximately 470.000 citizens, NIS 2009). Almost a third of its population is of foreign origin, although many people have the Belgian nationality through birth or naturalization (Stad Antwerpen 2008: 38). The local Turkish consulate and Antwerp’s urban statistics department estimate that approximately 17,000 people of Turkish origin live in the city, the majority originating from labor migration, which started in the mid-1960s (Khoojinian 2006), and successive family reunification and marriage migration (Timmerman 2006). Mainly concentrated in three peripheral neighborhoods, Antwerp hosts a number of Turkish organizations, merchants, religious organizations and mosques. Among the Muslim groups, Diyanet, Milli Görüú, Süleymanl and Alevi organizations are represented (see Bousetta & Kanmaz 2004). The city also hosts a campus of the Lucerna college, which is associated with the Gülen movement. Furthermore, considerable Kurdish and Turkish Alevi Muslim minorities live in Antwerp, making the Turkish community diverse and difficult to comprehand in terms of a homogeneous group (Gelekçi & Köse 2009).

Turkish film culture in Antwerp: between centre and periphery A historical overview of Turkish film culture is valuable in understanding the recent phenomenon of Turkish film screenings at multiplex theatres. As early as the late 1960s and the 1970s, when the Turkish diaspora mainly consisted of labor migrants and their young families, Turkish films were screened in Antwerp, as was the case in Brussels. These films, contemporary Yeúilçam classics and arabesk films, were imported by Turkish businessmen and screened in small cafés and community centers. Occasionally, local film theaters located near the Turkish neighborhoods screened Turkish films in order to attract new audiences at a time when the

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Belgian cinema-going ‘routine’ (Willems 2007: 251) was declining, mainly due to the spread of television and, later, home recording technology. Recalling these screenings, Emre (43) 2 recalls that ‘it was especially a male occasion, young boys with their brothers and sometimes fathers. But I’ve never been there with my parents, rather with friends. (…) But fathers and mothers didn’t have time for such things.’3 As we will illustrate below, this contrasts with today’s situation. Later, in the 1980s, these screenings were gradually replaced by VHS and Betamax technology. Turkish films entered the living room of the diaspora as Turkish video shops began to appear in Turkish neighborhoods. A respondent evokes one such video shop: ‘It was a house; from outside you couldn’t see it was a video shop. (…) That guy had arranged his whole living room with film copies, seldom an original one. (…) People just walked in and out, everyone knew about it’ (Nejat, 36). Subsequently, most of these disappeared in the course of the 1990s, when satellite television started becoming common within the Turkish community. Rather than films, Turkish series and other broadcasts came to the fore as the most significant visual media from Turkey available to the diaspora. As noted above, Turkish film production has increased considerably in the last decade, which has increased the supply to the diaspora. In 2003, the Belgian film exhibition group Kinepolis hosted a festival of Turkish films, celebrating 40 years of immigration. Around the same period, a cultural entrepreneur of Turkish origin started organizing popular Turkish film screenings in Brussels. The following year, in 2004, the Kinepolis group took over the screenings when it began including mainstream Turkish films in the regular program at theatres in Brussels, Antwerp and other cities. Although the screenings developed from a local initiative, it has equally been the result of the international expansion of a small number of distribution companies (e.g. Maxximum, Kinostar). Ever since, there have been no other screenings besides those at Kinepolis and at occasional festivals and social events. Although public film screenings in multiplex theatres are today’s most visible facet of the diasporic film culture, this culture embraces a much wider range of film practices. Turkish films are available at a small number of video shops (both rental and sale) and through several television channels. Furthermore, the internet has developed into a 2

The interviews cited in this section are mainly part of the expert interviews. More details are given in the methods section below. 3 All translations are by the authors. Fictive names are used to protect interviewee’s privacy.

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significant medium for viewing, exchanging and downloading films. ‘A big threat for video shops and the film theatres,’ admits the 53-years old owner of a Turkish video shop. Especially among the younger generation, this is common practice. In contrast, the internet also serves as a main platform for promoting forthcoming releases or generating interest in certain film releases, as was the case for Recep Ivedik (Togan Gökbakar, 2008). It is still unknown whether exhibition and sales suffer from the online circulation of films in the case of diasporic film cultures. However, the internet provides a significant link for a film industry that otherwise would not have a high profile. For instance, several youngsters told that they closely follow the website Beyazperde, searching for film news and new releases. Furthermore, the informal circulation of films is an important dimension of the diasporic film culture: ‘I bring along a whole stack of films when I travel to Turkey during the summer, or ask others to bring films along for me,’ Gürkan (26) tells us – a story that is echoed by other respondents. In addition, several film festivals and art house theatres have been screening independent Turkish films, which also have become more prominent in recent years. However, these films are at least very rarely attended by the Turkish diaspora and are therefore not included in this study. A future investigation into this aspect could, however, further refine our understanding of national cinema in connection with diasporas. Encompassing more than four decades of diasporic film culture, a wide range of technologies, media and circulation patterns have facilitated the connection between what could be described as the centre and the periphery of the Turkish film network in its widest sense. The circulation takes place mainly in one direction, i.e. from centre to periphery, although it can be argued that diasporic production (e.g. the 2010 Belgian-Turkish film Turquaze by Kadir Balc, which had a Turkish co-producer) is starting to alter this relation. Films produced by people of Turkish origin in Germany have particularly raised interest in Turkey. Yet, centreperiphery circulation does not necessarily flow directly from Turkish film studios to the diaspora, but rather, involves transnational processes in which films are distributed by German or Dutch companies, for example, German businessmen export DVDs to Belgium etc. So far we have dealt with Turkish film culture as a rather separate and inevitably ethnic given. One way of gaining a broader perspective on Turkish diasporic film culture is to look into audience experiences and composition, which we will do in the following sections.

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Methods The current study of Turkish film culture in Antwerp embraces a range of methods, stemming from a political-economic perspective on the one hand, and a cultural studies-inspired audience study on the other. In order to gain insight into the circulation and structural characteristics of the diasporic film culture, a structural analysis of film supply is made, the result of which was briefly described in the previous section. For this analysis, we conducted 17 semi-structured interviews with experts in the field of film distribution, exploitation, production and promotion. Furthermore, interviews with experts from the Turkish community in Antwerp provided insight into the cultural and leisure activities of the community. The subsequent and continuing audience study comprises an audience survey (N=536), in-depth interviews (N=25), focus group interview (N=5, at least 4 participants per group) among different generations of the Turkish diaspora in Antwerp, as well as participant observation during film screenings. Here, we focus on the audience survey which was conducted among the audiences of four Turkish films between November 2010 and February 2011: New York’ta Beú Minare (Mahsun Krmzgül, 2010), Av Mevsimi (Yavuz Turgul, 2010), Eyyvah Eyyvah 2 (Hakan Algül, 2011) and Kurtlar Vadisi Filistin (Zübeyr Sasmaz, 2011). In the survey, anonymous respondents described their appreciation of Turkish and other films, their broader film consumption preferences and demographic details. In this paper, we will particularly focus on the latter part of the survey, as the demographic composition of Turkish film audiences offers a good starting point to discuss the diasporic film screenings. On entering the theatre screening Turkish films, respondents were asked to complete the survey which was collected during the intermission or directly after the film. After experimentation, this schedule appeared the most efficient, although the setting and timing still proved problematic for a number of respondents. Table 1 gives an overview of the number of surveys conducted for this study. Additional illustrations and quotes are taken from expert interviews or conversations with the audience during participant observations.

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Film (number of screenings)

Questionnaires returned

New York’ta Beú Minare (4) Av Mevsimi (1) Eyyvah Eyyvah 2 (2) Kurtlar Vadisi Filistin (4)

269 31 47 189

Return Rate (% of total tickets sold) 49.1 63.3 78.9 42.1

Total (11)

536

53.3

175

Table 1: Overview of surveys conducted among audiences of Turkish films between November 2010 and February 2011

Big, small and tiny screens In this paper we focus mainly on the multiplex screenings. Yet it is clear that film culture among a community reaches far beyond the theatre’s big screen. A small number of Turkish video shops in Antwerp importing DVDs directly from Turkey or working with Dutch or German distributors are found in the Turkish neighborhoods and offer the most popular Turkish films, often alongside American and European films. Additionally, the survey participants indicated that satellite television is a major medium for watching Turkish films (71% said to watch Turkish films on satellite television ‘often’). Previous studies have already hinted at the importance of satellite dishes in the media menu of Turkish families in Belgium (Gezduci & D’Haenens 2007), while Gökçen Karanfil (2007; 2009) demonstrated that satellite broadcasts play complex roles in the lives of the Turkish diaspora in Australia. For many people in the diaspora, satellite television is part of everyday reality. Among the younger generation then, the internet is an important source for accessing Turkish films, watching clips and finding information about new releases. Most of the young respondents indicated that Turkish films are easily found online, or that films circulate freely among their group of friends. Occasionally respondents talked about viewing Turkish films on other new communication technologies such as cell phones and smart phones, although this seems a rather small group. Future research might look into the bridging and bonding processes linked to all these different media. For instance in the case of online film viewing, the so-called ‘digital divide’ could be studied in the diaspora.

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Audiences of Turkish films in Antwerp In this article we want to draw attention to some key results that support the exploratory conceptualization of bridging and bonding processes, as sketched in the following sections. One of the initial focuses of investigation was degree to which Turkish film screenings were attended by people without Turkish roots, Considering the fact that the films are easily divided into genres parallel to the common Western film genres (drama, romantic comedy and so on) and contemporary Turkish film is more globalized and diversified than ever before (Arslan 2009). Moreover, theatre managers emphasized that films should be open to a broad audience, reflecting their desire to cater for mixed audiences. In order to assess this issue we asked for respondent’s nationality, country of birth and the country of birth of their parents and grandparents on both sides. Each of these variables has shortcomings when it comes to categorizing viewers’ roots, and as this study is also qualitatively oriented, we are cautious about separating Turkish immigrants from the others on these grounds, because the socially-lived reality is much more complex and it has been repeatedly demonstrated that diasporic identity goes beyond the question of nationality. We combined these different variables (frequency of variables sum) and found that 93.1% of the viewers had Turkish roots. This means that at least one of their ancestors was born in Turkey although we realize that we put extra emphasis on the issue of Turkish origin by applying this division. However, in most cases respondents had both parents and grandparents that were born in Turkey. Although the majority of the viewers were not themselves born in Turkey (only 30.1% was), slightly more than half (54.5%) retained Turkish nationality, many holding shared Turkish-Belgian or Turkish-Dutch citizenship. Thus, it is clear that the audience of Turkish films is almost exclusively of Turkish origin. Moreover, those of non-Turkish origin were often accompanied by a partner or relative of Turkish origin. This result is not surprising, given the fact that Turkish films are mainly promoted via Turkish satellite broadcasts (on channels such as ATV, Star TV and Kanal D): more than half (55.7%) of the audience of Turkish origin were aware of the film screenings primarily through satellite television. Concerning the nationality and place of residence of the audience, it was found that the screenings attract viewers from a wide area, reaching from Rotterdam (Netherlands) to Brussels and Ghent. Although 60.3% of the audience live in the city of Antwerp (particularly in the areas with large Turkish populations), a significant group travelled from villages, from other cities in the province or from nearby cities in the south of the Netherlands in

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order to view Turkish films. Hence, despite its homogeneity in terms of Turkish origin, one can argue that the screenings gather a diverse and transnational group of Belgian and Dutch citizens as well as people from urbanized and less urbanized environments. The average age of the audience was a second major point of interest when initiating the survey. Although no previous study was conducted among film audiences, studies on satellite broadcasts and other media found that they particularly attract older immigrants. Christine Ogan (2001: 130-145) sketches how first-generation immigrants in Amsterdam are more ‘tied to the television from Turkey than their children’ and their role as the main consumers of Turkish print media. Also, Gökçen Karanfil (2009) refers mainly to the first-generation diaspora when discussing the influences of satellite television on everyday diasporic life. Among the Turkish diaspora in Greece, Mirca Madianou (2005) stumbled upon similar findings: Turkish satellite television was less popular among younger people mainly due to the language barriers they encountered. Although from these studies, one might presume that Turkish films appeal mainly to first-generation migrants, in fact, we found that most viewers were born and raised in Belgium. Moreover, the average age of the viewers was 26 years and the oldest respondent was only 60 years old. Below we discuss this finding in relation to the common perception that (Turkish) films are mainly for younger people. Another key demographic question was the distributions of men and women among the audience of Turkish films. It was mentioned in exploratory interviews that films provide an opportunity for both men and women to participate, in contrast to many other leisure activities. Through the survey we found that men and women are approximately equally represented among the audience (52.6% men compared to 47.4% women). However, when looking at each film separately, it appeared that the screenings of Kurtlar Vadisi: Filistin were attended more by men: 62.7% compared to 37.2% women. In several interviews, the Kurtlar Vadisi television series and films were considered to be aimed at men of all ages. Other films, such as the comedy Eyyvah Eyvvah 2, were equally balanced, while New York’ta Beú Minare attracted more women (55%). Some gender differences were also found when it comes to accompaniment at screenings. Although the majority of the respondents indicated most frequently attending with a group of friends or with a partner, men in particularly appeared to go to the film alone, unlike women. Furthermore, women reported accompanying their families and children more often than men.

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Towards a conceptualization of diasporic film practices: bridging and bonding processes An in-depth analysis of audience experiences gives greater insight into the results of our survey. Therefore, we now move to the next level of the study and focus on the conceptual framework of our audience study, which is qualitatively oriented and rooted in the tradition of audience ethnographic research, as set out by authors such as David Morley (1999) and Ien Ang (1996) among others. This tradition has found resonance in the study of diasporic film cultures only to a minor extent, and particularly within the field of global Bollywood studies (e.g. Dudrah & Rai 2005). Our exploratory conceptualization of diasporic film practices among the Turkish diaspora draws on the extensive literature on social capital, the broad debates of which we are unable to report in detail here (for further reading see: Adam & Roncevic 2003; Patulny & Svendsen 2007). Rather than measuring, mapping or testing a specific form of social capital among the Turkish diaspora, we apply two of its essential concepts - bridging and bonding - to our case study in order to describe and analyze audience experiences and the social background of diasporic film culture. Bridging and bonding function essentially as sensitizing concepts, a term used by Herbert Blumer (1954): we start by using the term in a broad sense to direct the research to certain points of attention, allowing respondents and the qualitative data to identify and describe concepts as much as possible. According to Robert Putnam (2000) in, Bowling alone, his landmark publication about social capital in the U.S.A., bonding social capital is ‘inward looking and tend(ing) to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups,’ whereas ‘bridging networks are outward looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages.’ These universal social mechanisms have been applied to a broad range of phenomena, including media (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe 2007) and migration (Nederveen Pieterse 2003). To some degree, this has resulted in a rather vague conceptual use. Therefore it is necessary to be precise when describing the different social cleavages that this study deals with. Our exploratory framework focuses on three such cleavages identified during expert interviews and tentative conversations with audiences: (1) ethnic and national identifications; (2) gender grouping and (3) generational positions. Below, we discuss the bridging and bonding processes connected to diasporic film culture for each of these elements.

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Ethnic and national identifications The results of our survey demonstrated that the screenings of mainstream Turkish films are almost exclusively attended by people of Turkish origin, even though many were Belgian-born. Identifying their various ethnic and national identifications is a complex task, as individuals may refer to language, birthplace of (grand-)parents or other key aspects in their self-identification towards ethnic and national entities. Among the younger generation especially, there is a strong consciousness of what Sreberny (2005) has described as ‘multiple identifications,’ illustrated by the explicit awareness of simultaneously being both Turkish and Flemish/Belgian. The scope of this paper does not allow a detailed examination of identification issues. The general observation was that Turkish films were highly anticipated – most of the people were well informed about release date and the atmosphere was mostly enthusiastic. The screenings were described as special and unique opportunities to see and hear Turkish on the big screen. One respondent (male, 36 years old) is explicit about this, echoing several other conversations: ‘The Turkish audience wants to hear Turkish in the film, it could even be a Flemish film with Turkish in it.’ Interestingly, producers and distributors seem to anticipate this, for instance New York’ta Beú Minare was screened in a version in which English dialogues were dubbed in Turkish rather than subtitled, much to the audiences’ satisfaction. Moreover, for some films a good knowledge of Turkish is needed, as subtitles are occasionally absent or very inaccurate due to practical considerations and time constraints. This sets up a barrier for audiences and occasionally we noted people of non-Turkish origin walking out the film almost immediately. A number of younger people also indicated that Turkish films help them to practice their parents’ mother tongue in an enjoyable way, although some said the same of watching Turkish satellite channels. This strong link between films and language articulates the bonding potential of diasporic film practices: they deepen the linguistic ties between audiences and their (families’) mother tongue. Often, language serves as a differentiating factor, with respondents reporting that it is impossible to understand or enjoy the Turkish films without knowing Turkish. ‘There is a huge gap with the Flemish audience that attends these films, if they do so at all,’ a 26-years boy of Turkish origin remarked. But, as is very often the case, the film screenings show that one and the same phenomenon may relate to bonding as well as bridging group processes. The physical environment of the film theatre is mainly responsible for the potential bridging with other ethnic and national groups – by respondents often identified as the non-Turkish speaking groups

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(which embrace different generations, nationalities and backgrounds and language as a main common factor). Ever since 2003, popular Turkish films are screened at the multiplex theatre, where they appear next to American, European and Indian films. Recently, the Kinepolis theatre also offers theatre, opera and sport screenings, joining the international diversification trend in (digital) film exhibition (Aveyard 2009). People coming to watch Turkish films, are – often unconsciously – confronted with posters, trailers, banners and signs of the theatre’s program, as well as with those of the media and music store in the multiplex’s main entrance hall. During the long period of fieldwork in the theatre, we only rarely came across commercials for Turkish films, in contrast to an abundance of American commercials. The exposure to these commercials and trailers serves as an important information source for those that would otherwise have minimal contact with American and European media and cinema in particular. A number of respondents indeed indicated that they only travelled to the theatre for Turkish films. In fact, some, especially older people or recently arrived people, visited the film theatre for the first time in their lives in order to see Turkish films. For the group that is most focused on Turkish media, diasporic film culture may thus involve bridging towards non-Turkish media and cultural products such as films. During observations in the multiplex, we also occasionally noticed families intending to watch the latest Turkish film were influenced by the promotion posters, and eventually chose an American film. Although motivations are diverse, it is clear that the multiplex facilitates contact with a variety of (mainly Western) cultural products. Yet for a large proportion of the audience, mostly younger people, American rather than Turkish films serve as a norm. Therefore, the relations between Turkish and other, particularly American films should be a focus for further research.

Gender grouping Diasporic media consumption has often been approached from a gender perspective (e.g. Desai 2006; Ewing 2008), especially focusing on diasporic adult and young females. As some of these studies have demonstrated, media practices in the diaspora can facilitate feelings of belonging to a closed, almost private gendered group, while in other cases, joint cross-gender viewing is central (Thompson 2002) to the cultural transmission related to media consumption. We believe that both these developments are present in the case of Turkish diasporic film screenings,

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again showing evidence of cross-gender bridging and gender-bonding potential. On the one hand, popular Turkish films follow a rather classical pattern that is also seen in many American and European films: people often attend with their partner. One respondent (male, 36 years old) tells us that ‘boys and girls only go to the film together as a couple’ and apart from some rare exceptions this indeed did seem the case during our fieldwork. These exceptions consisted mainly of groups of relatives, such as cousins, and aunts/uncles and nephews/nieces. Attending Turkish films proved a pleasant activity for couples old and young, and in the last two or three years the industry attempted to exploit this by releasing romantic films in the Valentine’s day period, such as ølk Aúk (Nihat Durak, 2007), Aúk Tutulmas (Murat ùeker, 2009) or Aúk Tesadüfleri Sever (Ömer Faruk Sorak, 2011). Furthermore, cross-gender family audiences constitute a considerable part of the audiences of Turkish films, and several respondents drew attention to the change that Turkish film screenings have brought with respect to joint family viewing. In the words of the spokesman of a Turkish organization in Antwerp: ‘Except for film-going, there are very few opportunities to do things as a family, men and women together. Men and women often spent their free time separately. (…) But they are willing to spend eight or nine euro for a ticket to go with the whole family because they see it as going out.’ As such, the film screenings may fulfill a role in bridging and maintaining cross-gender family ties. Conversely, another major audience segment is those who attend the film screening with their friends, usually groups of exclusively males or females. During our fieldwork, we frequently encountered such groups. During Kurtlar Vadisi: Filistin for example, male groups were especially common. When talking with these groups, it became clear that film-going was a significant common leisure activity, although many respondents noticed that the make up of viewer groups may change according to the film and time period (e.g. more often with friends during school holidays). While action movies such as the Kurtlar Vadisi films attract a more male audience, it is less clear which films mainly attract females. As described in the previous section, women are present at all films, but we encountered groups of women particularly during the most popular films, such as Recep øvedik or New York’ta Beú Minare. In such cases, the film was often part of a social occasion which included dinners and/or drinks in the neighborhood of the multiplex. This pattern was similar among groups of men. In these cases, going to the Turkish film clearly provides opportunities for bonding within gendered groups.

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Generational positions Some of the above described cross-gender bridgings are similar to the bridging between different generations of one family. Just as film-going can bring together men and women, it may unite the generations in a joint activity, and the mutual and cross-generational experience of films may lead to a deepened understanding between generations. One respondent (male, 24-years old) recalls a screening of Babam ve O÷lum (Ça÷an Irmak, 2005), a drama about a troubled father-son relationship which led to ‘families crying together, even the fathers, and encouraged the viewers to ‘talk and think about the clash between generations and respect for your parents.’ In a similar vein, a mother of Turkish origin told us during a conversation at the screening of the equally dramatic film Umut (Murat Arslan, 2009) that going to a ‘good Turkish film’ with her children increased their understanding of her background and the way Turkish culture ‘functions’. Although diasporic film practices such as joint film-going may unite generations and increase cross-generational understanding, the average audience at Turkish film screenings is rather young. Any future interviews with non-viewers from the first generation will shed light on reasons for not attending Turkish films. When asked about this, several interviewees briefly answered that for instance their parents are just ‘too old’ to go to the theatre. Going to the multiplex is generally considered an activity for younger people and young families – the theatre itself repeatedly plays out its child-friendly image. Thus, it was emphasized by different respondents that going to Turkish films is particularly an activity for groups of friends, who experience it as pleasurable and relaxing. Recep øvedik or Eyvah Eyvah 2 can compete with American and Flemish comedies, attracting a young audience, while the old generation disapproves of these films. Such differences in preference and reception may emphasize broader cultural conflicts between generations, which is potentially an important area for future audience research. The juxtaposition of these three social dimensions – ethnic and national identification, gender grouping and generational position – results in an exploratory framework for the study of diasporic film cultures. Although based on a particular case study, we argue that this framework can be applied and investigated in different contexts when adopting a bridging/bonding approach. Table 2 summarizes each dimension in terms of the bridging and bonding processes. Although not all elements are equally influential, this grid illustrates how these processes may co-exist. They may vary depending on the film genre, date, as well as on the degree

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of people’s general contact with Turkish and non-Turkish media and culture. The latter aspect might be a crucial factor, as it may either affirm existing cultural ties (respondents with a Turkish-oriented media consumption) or be supplementary to their usual non-Turkish-oriented media consumption (and all positions in between). The impact of viewing a Turkish film at a multiplex therefore may vary significantly. Bridging between groups

Bonding within groups

Ethnic and national identifications (1)

- Theatre facilitates contact with nonTurkish media

- Films as cultural link with Turkish culture - Turkish language as groupdemarcation

Gender grouping (2)

- Dating: film unites the sexes - Cross-gender family activity

- Same-sex groups of friends

Generational positions (3)

- Cross-generational cultural transmission - Cross-generational family activity

- Same-age groups of friends - Film-going for younger people

ÖGeneral variables - occasion - genre - broader media menu and orientation towards Turkey

Table 2: Bridging and bonding processes of Turkish diasporic film practices

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Discussion and conclusions The results that are sketched in this paper are partly exploratory; however, they set out an agenda for the future study of diasporic audiences and media use. As noted in the introduction, we argue for a combination of a structural analysis of film industries combined with a thorough study of their audiences. In the case of Turkish diasporic film culture in Antwerp, knowledge about the composition and reception of film audiences may inform our understanding of the general phenomenon of diasporic film distribution. In this two-stage process, the first stage is identifying the complex transnational centre-periphery relations that connect film industries and diasporas, and the second necessary stage is explaining and illustrating their local impact, as we argue that film practices are significant in the process of shaping and changing the social reality of diasporas. We briefly discuss these two issues, which illustrate the local impact of the broader structures behind diasporic film. First, exhibitors and distributors seem to have a considerable power when it comes to the composition of audiences of popular Turkish films in the diaspora. Although distributors admit that the internet is gaining importance, the main promotion medium still seems to be Turkish satellite television (particularly channels such as ATV and Star TV). As these are watched by Turkish-speaking audiences only, the potential audience is narrowed down to this particular group. Moreover, the local multiplex undertakes little effort to promote popular Turkish films to a wider audience. The fact that often subtitles are lacking, incomplete or incorrect contributes to the rather exclusive Turkish character of the film screenings, as illustrated by our analysis of the audience composition. The vast majority are either of Turkish origin or have a Turkish partner. Generally, the small minority of viewers in neither category either found their way into the film by accident, or were invited to the film unaware of its true nature. In a few cases they deliberately chose to go watch a Turkish movie, as one of the survey’s respondents wrote down on the survey: ‘I work at a video shop and from my experience I know that a Turkish film can surely measure up to a European or American film.’ However, future audience studies may focus on the question of whether and to what extent this small non-Turkish group appreciates Turkish films compared to the majority of viewers of Turkish origin. Furthermore, considering the history of Turkish film culture in Antwerp, it can be seen that exhibitors and distributors have dramatically affected the Turkish film viewing environment in the last decade. While this generally used to be a private, indoor activity, exhibitors and distributors have ‘externalized’ the screenings, rendering

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them public, outdoor and in a completely different setting. Although such screenings could only be guaranteed by a loyal local audience, it is clear that the industry for its part has determined the conditions under which that audience watches its preferred films. It follows then that, secondly, these screenings have indeed become a significant social event. As one respondent (male, 25 years old) puts it: ‘It is as if some people come to a parade. They are completely dressed up and deliberately go to the toilet during the film so that everyone can see them. They might see someone they know in every Turkish film.’ As shown by our exploratory scheme of bridging and bonding processes related to the film practices, the film screenings can play a role in the social relations within and beyond the Turkish community. This includes the deepening of significant group ties, such as the relations between same-sex or same-age groups. The most significant bonding process is potentially that which occurs within the Turkish community, as watching these films was said to contribute to the understanding of Turkish values, Turkish language and so on. However, it was also demonstrated that the film screenings play a role in strengthening cross-group interactions and understandings. For instance, many respondents indicated that they often watch films with family members, parents or even grandparents. Occasionally, people of Turkish origin invited non-Turkish friends to join them in order to learn about Turkish culture. These are examples of where Turkish film practices may have an influence on the broader social and cultural relations of the entire Turkish community.

References Adam, F. & Roncevic, B. (2003). Social capital: recent debates and research trends. In: Social science information. 42: 155-183. Alessandrini, A. C. (2001). ‘My heart's Indian for all that’: Bollywood Film between home and diaspora. In: Diaspora 10(3): 315-340. Ang, I. (1996). Living room wars: rethinking media audiences for a postmodern world. London; New York (NY): Routledge. Arslan, S. (2009). The new cinema of Turkey. In: New Cinemas 7(1): 8397. Aveyard, Karina (2009). ‘Coming to a cinema near you?’: digitized exhibition and independent cinemas in Australia. In: Studies in Australasian Cinema 3(2): 191-203. Behlil, M. (2010). Close encounters: Contemporary Turkish television and cinema. In: Wide Screen 2(2): 1-14.

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Blumer, H. (1954). What is wrong with social theory? In: American Sociological Review 19(1): 3-10. Bousetta, H. & Kanmaz, M. (2004). Islam en moslims in België: lokale uitdagingen en algemeen denkkader. Brussel: Koning Boudewijnstichting. Desai, J. (2006). Bombay boys and girls: the gender and sexual politics of transnationality in the new Indian cinema in English. In: Ezra, E. & T. Rowden (Eds.). Transnational cinema: the film reader. London; New York, NY: Routledge: 57-70. Dudrah, R. & A. Rai (2005). The haptic codes of Bollywood cinema in New York City. In: New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 3: 143-158. Ellison, N.B., Steinfield, C. & C. Lampe (2007). The benefits of Facebook ‘friends’: social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. In: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12: 1143-1168. Ewing, K. P. (2008). Between cinema and social work: diasporic Turkish women and the (dis)pleasures of hybridity. In: Inda, J. X. & R. Rosaldo (Eds.). The anthropology of globalization: a reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell: 184-211. Gelekçi, C. & A. Köse (2009). Misafir iúçilikten etnik aznl÷a. Belçika'daki Türkler. Ankara: Phoenix. Gezduci, H. & L. D'Haenens (2007). Culture-specific features as determinants of news media use. In: Communications 32: 193-222. Karanfil, G. (2007). Satellite television and its discontents. Reflections on the experiences of Turkish-Australian lives. In: Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 21(1): 59-69. —. (2009). Pseudo-exiles and reluctant transnationals: disrupted nostalgia on Turkish satellite broadcasts. In: Media, Culture & Society 31(6): 887-899. Khoojinian, M. (2006). L'acceuil et la stabilisation des travailleurs immigrés turcs en Belgique, 1963-1980. In: Cahiers d'histoire du temps présent 17: 73-116. Madianou, M. (2005). Contest communicative spaces: rethinking identities, boundaries and the role of the media among Turkish speakers in Greece. In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31(3): 521-541. Morley, D. (1999). Family television. Cultural power and domestic leisure. London & New York (NY): Routledge. Murdock, G. & P. Golding (2005). Culture, communications and political economy. In: Curran, J. & M. Gurevitch (Eds.). Mass media and society. London; New York (NY): Hodder Arnold; Oxford University Press: 60-83.

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Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2003). Social capital and migration. Beyond ethnic economies. In: Ethnicities 3(1): 5-34. NIS Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek (2009). Bevolking op 1 januari 2008 per gemeente. Retrieved from http://statbel.fgov.be/nl/modules/publications/statistiques/bevolking/To t_residerende_bevolking.jsp (28 August 2009). Ogan, C. (2001). Communication and identity in the diaspora: Turkish migrants in Amsterdam and their use of media. Lanham (MD): Lexington Books. Patulny, R. V. & G. L. H. Svendsen (2007). Exploring the social capital grid: bonding, bridging, qualitative, quantitative. In: International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 27(1/2): 32-51. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York (NY): Simon & Schuster. Sreberny, A. (2005). ‘Not only, but also’: mixedness and media. In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31(3): 443-459. Stad Antwerpen (2008). Samenleven in diversiteit: eenheid in verscheidenheid & verscheidenheid in eenheid: beleidsplan 2009-2011. Retrieved from http://www.antwerpen.be/docs/Stad/Bedrijven/Sociale_zaken/SZ_Integ ratie/20080522_MJP_Eindversie.pdf (20 June 2008). Thompson, K. (2002). Border crossings and diasporic identities: Media use and leisure practices of an ethnic minority. In: Qualitative Sociology 25(3): 409-417. Thornley, D. (2009). Talking film, talking identity: New Zealand expatriates reflect on national film. In: European Journal of Cultural Studies 12(1): 99-117. Timmerman, C. (2006). Gender dynamics in the context of Turkish marriage migration. The case of Belgium. In: Turkish Studies 7(1): 125-143. Willems, G. (2007). Antwerpen 'Kinemastad'. Een kroniek van honderd jaar bioscoopcultuur. In: Biltereyst, D. & P. Meers (Eds.). De verlichte stad. Een geschiedenis van bioscopen, filmvertoningen en filmcultuur in Vlaanderen. Leuven, Lannoo Campus: 239-257.

FROM TURKISH GREENGROCER TO DRAG QUEEN: REASSESSING PATRIARCHY IN RECENT TURKISH-GERMAN COMING-OF-AGE FILMS1 DANIELA BERGHAHN

Some of the most prominent directors of the New Turkish-German Cinema have put the destabilisation and critical investigation of ethnic stereotypes of ‘the Turk’, or rather, the Turkish-German migrant, high on their artistic agenda. In fact, Fatih Akin, currently the most high-profile of the ‘Young Turks’, who started his career in the film industry as an actor, decided to make his own films because he was no longer prepared to the play the ‘stereotype Turk’, that is the Turk who is either a victim or a social problem (cited in Dehn 1999). By scripting and directing his own films, including such success stories as Kurz und schmerzlos / Short Sharp Shock (1998), Im Juli / In July (2000) and Gegen die Wand / Head-On (2004) he hoped to avoid these stereotypes (arguably creating other ones instead) and to move films about migrants out of the ‘guest-worker niche’ and into the mainstream of German film culture (Akin 2004).2 Thomas 1

I gratefully acknowledge the funding I received from the British Academy, which enabled me to present an earlier version of this paper at the conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies in Philadelphia in March 2008. This article is part of a larger project on Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under the Diasporas, Migration and Identities Programme, cf. http://www.migrantcinema.net. This chapter has been previously published in a special issue on Turkish German Dialogues on Screen, which I guest-edited for New Cinemas, 7:1 (2009). 2 The term ‘guest-worker’ (Gastarbeiter) refers to labour migrants who were ‘invited’ by the West German government during the economic boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. Like ‘guests’ they were expected to stay only temporarily but many, in particular, Turkish labour migrants were joined by their families and stayed for good. Films about Turkish and other labour migrants were first made by

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Arslan, best known for his Berlin Kreuzberg Trilogy, expresses a similar disaffection with clichéd portrayals of Turks. By releasing Turkish characters of ‘the burden of representation’ (Mercer 2003: 251),3 he endeavours to utilise cinema as a space for shifting public perception: ‘If it is already no longer possible to avoid clichés altogether, one can perhaps attempt to pass beyond them, that is to say, to try and use such images as the point of departure in order, gradually to dismantle them in such a way as that something else becomes visible’ (Arslan cited in Burns 2007: 372). Similarly, Sülbiye Günar, whose debut film Karamuk premiered on the German television channel WDR in 2004, stated in an interview that she was determined to avoid any essentialising notions of Turkishness: I would be extremely pleased if [audiences] were relieved to find that, at last, Karamuk is a film which is not about a Turkish greengrocer and his wife with a headscarf and not about drug dealers in kebab-huts, but about Turkish fellow citizens, who have been living in Germany for decades and who grew up here. Citizens, who speak almost more German to each other at home than Turkish and who, just like Johanna, have their own individual identity and do not have to discuss whether they are German or Turkish or something else. (Günar 2002)4

Günar’s list of ethnic stereotypes succinctly summarises the shift from narratives focusing on the alterity of Turkish immigrants to narratives about criminalised Turks. While the ‘cinema of alterity’ denotes primarily social problem films made by indigenous German filmmakers who approach German filmmakers during the 1970 and, from the 1980s on, also by Turkish filmmakers living and working in Germany. Thematically, these early films focused on inhuman living and working conditions of foreigners in Germany (e.g. the documentary Ganz unten / Lowest of the Low, Jörg Gförer, 1986) and the victimisation of Turkish women (Shirins Hochzeit / Shirin’s Wedding, Helma Sanders Brahms, 1976). Many of these films were gloomy social problem films making a moral appeal for more tolerance and compassion towards foreigners. Except for Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s art house classic Angst essen Seele auf / Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) about the unlikely romance between a young Moroccan labour migrant and a much older German woman, films about guest workers and ethnic minorities occupied a small niche in the market. 3 Mercer’s much-quoted concept of the burden of representation includes the tacit assumption that the black or other ethnic minority individual represented in a particular film ‘can be regarded as representative of every black person’s perception of reality’ (2003: 251). In addition, it raises the expectation that every ethnic minority filmmaker will make films about their ethnic constituency. 4 All German quotations cited in this article were translated into English by the author.

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the Turkish ‘other’ with a social worker ethos (see Burns 2006; Seeßlen 2000) and express ‘a sense of moral indignation and compassion’ (Fenner 2006: 26) for marginalised and exploited guest workers and oppressed, victimised Turkish women, the ‘cinema of the affected’ (Burns 2006: 133), associated in particular with Tevfik Baúer’s early films 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland / Forty Square Metres of German (1986) and Abschied vom falschen Paradies / Farewell to a False Paradise (1989), follows a similar narrative formula but emphasises the authenticity of personal experience. Whereas in the German press and on television Turkish men have been collectively typecast as violent gang leaders and criminals for decades (see Butterwegge 2007; Farrokhzad 2006), in cinematic representations this form of ‘self-othering’ only gained wide currency in the late 1990s with the emergence of the ‘Young Turks’ and their films Short Sharp Shock, April Kinder / April Children (Yüksel Yavuz, 1998), Dealer (Thomas Arslan, 1999), Anam – Meine Mutter / Anam – My Mother (Buket Alakus, 2001) and Wut / Rage (Züli Aladag, 2006). At the same time, indigenous German filmmakers reinforced this new cliché of the criminalised Turk in films such as Ghettokids (Christian Wagner, 2002) and Knallhart / Tough Enough (Detlef Buck, 2006).5 The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in September 2001 and subsequent attacks on a commuter train in Madrid and on the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ascribed to Muslim fundamentalist organisations, have had a significant impact on ethnic stereotyping of Turks in the German media. ‘At least in West Germany’, Christoph Butterwegge notes in Die Zeit, ‘the Arab or Turkish Muslim has since replaced the south-European “guest worker” and the black asylum seeker, until then the most prevalent stereotypes of foreigners’ (Butterwegge 2007). Since 9/11, the criminalisation of Turks has become politically and ideologically charged and has become part and parcel of discourses on terrorism and Islam. On account of his Muslim faith, in particular, the Turkish man has become more suspect than ever before: as a possible ‘sleeper’, he poses a threat to security and as a Muslim husband or father, to the values of Western liberal democracy. According to Butterwege, this explains why forced marriages and honour killings – both symbols of the clash of civilisations – are receiving extensive media coverage. However, remarkably, this ‘Islamisation’ of the ethnic stereotyping of Turks is only just beginning to filter down into recent cinematic 5

Unless otherwise stated, all films referenced in this article were produced in Germany.

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representations. In fact, it seems as if, on the whole, Turkish-German filmmakers made an effort to counterbalance these dominant media discourses by featuring ‘enlightened’ Turks or those who are ‘acceptably “German”’ (Teraoka 1989: 110) and whose ethnic background constitutes neither baggage nor the films’ central thematic concern. This is not to say that the portrayals of Turks are predominantly positive. One need only think of Fatih Akin’s award-winning film Head-On, hailed as a new departure of Turkish-German cinema – and yet, we come across the ageold story: Sibel’s brothers threaten to kill her because she has dishonoured the family by pursuing an extra-marital affair, which leads to her husband accidentally killing his rival (see Suner 2005; Berghahn 2006). And what about the ultimate screen villain Can in Aladag’s controversial television film Rage, a Turkish gang leader who befriends and bullies Felix, then terrorises Felix’s German middle-class family and is eventually killed by Felix’s father in a desperate a attempt to protect his family? Ethnic stereotyping is ‘predicated on the reduction of complex cultural codes to easily consumable visual and verbal clues’ whereby ‘non-white cultures and characters [are represented] as static and one-dimensional’ (Wiegman 1998: 161). Moreover, in so far as stereotyping invariably involves simplification it goes hand in hand with the creation of binary oppositions through which the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is charged with an ‘implicit or explicit moral assessment concerning the group’s inherent essence’ (Wiegman 1998: 161). Normally, the positive pole is assigned to hegemonic white culture, whereas the negative pole to the racialised or ethnicised other. As will be illustrated below, Rage, a film by a Turkish-German director, differs from the widely used conventions of ethnic stereotyping since it problematises the social norms of Germans as much as it probes those of Turkish culture. In fact, Rage is not the only film to dislodge the Manichaean oppositions that underpinned earlier depictions of Turkish-German culture on German screens in the 1970s and 1980s. In this article I propose to explore how one particularly prevalent stereotype – that of the oppressive Turkish patriarch – has been reassessed in recent Turkish-German cinema. Focusing on coming-of-age narratives, I will consider the representation of father-daughter and father-son relationships, a theme which has received comparatively little attention in Turkish-German film productions since the 1990s.

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Coming-of-age films are about the transition from childhood to adolescence or from adolescence to adulthood.6 What distinguishes coming-of-age films set in a multicultural milieu from those set in a milieu in which race and ethnicity are normalised -- and thus invisible and, presumably, socially irrelevant -- is that they revolve around their protagonists’ ambivalent search for ethnic and cultural belonging. In a number of Turkish-German coming-of-age films, this search is imagined as inter-generational conflict within the family, which becomes a privileged site of the clash of civilisations. In particular more recent coming-of-age films tell a different story, focusing on teenage protagonists who negotiate successfully between their Turkish heritage and German society. The ‘voluntary affiliations’ made by these second or third generation adolescents result in the formation of new communities and hybrid identities in which descent and tradition (‘involuntary’ affiliations) are of no greater importance than those elective affinities that transcend ethnic and racial boundaries (see Hollinger 2000: 7). In the adolescents’ quest for identity and belonging, father figures play a crucial role. Comparing the early, coming-of-age film Yasemin (1988), scripted and directed by German filmmaker Hark Bohm, with three recent films by contemporary Turkish-German filmmakers Sülbiye Günar’s Karamuk, Ayse Polat’s Auslandstournee / Tour Abroad (2000) and Züli Aladag’s Rage, a number of remarkable developments and inversions in the young protagonists’ choices and in the depiction of patriarchy become apparent.7

The stereotype of the oppressive patriarch and the clash of civilisations Yasemin ‘has been multiply cited as an emphatic milestone in GermanTurkish understanding’ (Göktürk 2002: 251) and as a paradigmatic example of a coming-of-age film set in a Turkish-German milieu. Yet in reality it invokes every conceivable cliché of traditional Turkish Muslim patriarchy, which has dominated the German media for decades, and which have become particularly virulent again in the wake of 9/11 and the ensuing Islamisation of Turkish stereotyping. The wide-spread media 6

For a discussion of the genre conventions of coming-of-age films made by migrant or diasporic filmmakers, see Berghahn (2010). 7 Aladag’s début feature Elefantenherz / Elephant Heart (2002) and Kebab Connection (Anno Saul, 2004) are additional examples of this trend. For a discussion of Ayse Polat’s experimental films see Randall Halle’s article ‘Experiments in Turkish-German Filmmaking’ in this volume.

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coverage in 2005 of the honour killing of Hatun Sürücü in Berlin, a twenty-three-year-old Turkish woman, who was shot dead by her brothers while waiting at a bus stop because her way of life was incompatible with what her family deemed appropriate (see Lau 2005), illustrates what is at stake. Aged fifteen, Hatun had been forced to marry one of her cousins back in Turkey, but together with her baby returned to Germany when the marriage broke down. Her desire for independence, her pursuit of a career, her refusal to wear a headscarf and her alleged promiscuity was perceived as a violation of the code of honour of Turkish Muslim patriarchy. ‘The purity of the woman is the honour of the man’, states a Turkish proverb, which is cited by the cultural anthropologist Katherine Pratt-Ewing in her article ‘Between cinema and social work: Turkish women and the displeasures of hybridity’ (2006: 265). In the eyes of the Sürücü family, Hatun had behaved like a German, i.e. impure, woman. Honourable behaviour means chastity before marriage and bowing to male supremacy. Thus the control of women’s lives and their sexuality is crucially linked to the public and social identity of Turkish men. Ewing makes the point that Turkish men in diaspora are even more likely to resort to draconian means to guard their honour since the experience of migration, usually from rural Anatolia to Germany’s urban centres has resulted in a profound destabilisation of their identity. Thus, the culture conflict is not simply one between Turkish and German society, between Islam and secularism, but one between rural and urban culture. Moreover, working in low profile jobs and being marginalised in German society creates a sense of humiliation, for which Turkish men overcompensate by reasserting their power in the family context. Whilst second or third generation Turkish women tend to welcome the opportunities Western society affords them, their Turkish fathers (or husbands) feel threatened in their masculinity and struggle to redefine their identity in the new social context. All these factors contribute to the men’s insecurity and extreme female oppression (see Weisner 2005; Kelek 2006). Given the close link between female purity and male honour, the media depiction of Turkish German family life is gendered: ‘the adolescent girl who is expected to wear a headscarf, pulled out of school at a young age, kept close to home, and forced to marry a relative from Turkey, became a powerful symbol of cultural difference and the failure of the Turks to embrace assimilation’ (Ewing 2006: 269). Thus, in coming-of-age narratives, it is usually adolescent daughters rather than sons who fall victim to the power of the patriarch – as is the case in Yasemin. Hark Bohm’s well-intentioned and seemingly liberal-minded film has been analysed in numerous publications (see Kühn 1995; Göktürk 2000;

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Burns 2006, 2007) and has enjoyed considerable visibility around the world featuring ‘on almost every German-Turkish film programme and [being] circulated by the Goethe Institutes even in Thailand and India’ (Göktürk 2000: 68). Yasemin tells the story of a seventeen-year-old Turkish greengrocer’s daughter in Hamburg-Altona, whose father Yusuf turns from a loving and reasonably liberal father into a despotic family patriarch when the family honour is violated because his elder daughter, Emine, is ostensibly not a virgin when she gets married.8 However, Yasemin finds out that the real reason for her brother-in-law’s failure to produce the required proof of his wife’s virginity, the traditional bloodstained bridal sheet, was his own impotence. She confronts her father with the truth, thus openly challenging the archaic principles on which Turkish-Muslim patriarchy is based and which inevitably put the blame for a man’s lack of virility or even his sexual transgressions on the woman. Yusuf instantly puts Yasemin under house arrest and arranges for her deportation to Turkey, allegedly in order to protect her from the corrupting influences of a country of ‘infidels’. Cousin Dursun and Yasemin’s father take her to some remote place where Turkish men, who are supposed to arrange her onward journey to Turkey, are dancing round a camp fire like gypsies – a clichéd depiction of the exotic ‘other’. In the last minute Yasemin’s German boyfriend, Jan, appears on his motorbike and elopes with her. Despite having been ‘rescued’ from the oppressive rule of Turkish patriarchy, she mourns the loss of her family and tears are streaming down her face as she holds on to Jan on the motorbike. As Deniz Göktürk and other critics of Yasemin have noted, the film’s stance vis à vis mutliculturalist integration is highly problematic. It reinforces the dichotomy of a liberal and liberalising Western culture which is contrasted with an oppressive, backward Turkish-Muslim culture and draws on the common fantasy of ‘victimised Turkish women, who, especially when young and beautiful, need to be rescued from their patriarchal community’ (Göktürk 2000: 69). Yasemin with its rigid binarisms is an illustrative example of what Kobena Mercer – building on Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism – has called the ‘monologic tendency’. In his article ‘Diaspora culture and the dialogic imagination’, he contrasts the monologic imagination underpinning hegemonic representational strategies, which typically homogenise and totalise the experience of ethnic minorities in diaspora, such as Black people in Britain and the Turkish diaspora in Germany, with a ‘dialogic 8

Both Kühn (1995) and Burns (2007) draw attention to the implausibility of the film’s plot, which makes Yasemin an entirely unrealistic role model of cultural integration.

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tendency which is responsive to the diverse and complex qualities of […] our differentiated specificity as a diaspora people’ (Mercer 2003: 255). According to Bakhtin and Mercer ‘the dialogic principle’ entails ‘the possibility of social change [which] is prefigured in the collective consciousness by the multiplication of critical dialogues’ (Bakhtin cited in Mercer 2003: 255), whereas the monologic principle inherent in dominant discourses resists change since these dominant discourses are actually ‘discourses of domination’ (Mercer 2003: 258). To put it simply, in Yasemin Western culture wins hands down, whereas more recently Turkish-German directors have begun to reassess critically the alleged superiority of the indigenous German family – and found it lacking. Lacking in fathers as such, or in fathers who provide adequate role models of masculinity. In some cases, this gives Turkish fathers or father figures the opportunity to excel. Karamuk and Tour Abroad are two coming-of-age narratives that depict unconventional, idealised Turkish fathers.

The nurturing Turkish father Karamuk tells the story of seventeen-year-old Johanna, who lives with her single mother in Cologne. Her one ambition in life is to become a fashion designer but she needs to find the money to study in Paris. When her mother does not support her, Johanna approaches Peter, her mother’s ex-partner and the man whom she presumes to be her father. She soon learns that not the German Peter but a Turkish man named Cumhur is her biological father. He is the owner of an elegant Turkish restaurant. Without revealing her identity, Johanna finds work in the kitchen of Cumhur’s restaurant and befriends the Turkish chef. Determined to find the money to go to fashion school, she breaks into Cumhur’s safe – and gets caught by him. At first Cumhur is furious, but then his anger subsides and he is forgiving, generous and thoughtful. He explains to Johanna why he never got the chance to be the kind of father to her which he would have liked to be: Johanna’s mother never told him that she was expecting a baby from him, presumably because she did not want to marry him. So Cumhur married a well-educated Turkish woman, Füssun, with whom he has two children and an exceptionally happy family life, which is contrasted with Johanna’s conflict-ridden and fragmented domestic background. The rebellious and unhappy Johanna soon learns to trust her new-found father, who instantly assumes a protective and nurturing role in her life, even integrating her to some extent in his perfect family life. It is Cumhur, rather than Johanna’s German mother or her ex-partner Peter,

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who provides Johanna with the financial means to study in Paris. His attitudes are as liberal as those of any well-educated Western man and are based on the acceptance of complete equality between the sexes. His social status – he is the wealthy owner of a sophisticated restaurant (not a Turkish greengrocer or owner of a kebab shop), a luxurious home and an expensive car – is on a par with any German middle-class man. At the same time, he has not renounced his Turkish origins. In his restaurant he employs exclusively Turks; his family home is a mixture of German interior design and Oriental opulence; Füsun and Cumhur speak Turkish and German with each other; and, like any self-respecting Turkish man, he is part of an all-male Turkish community, as a scene that shows him drinking tea in his office with other Turkish men indicates. Cumhur marks a dramatic departure from the cultural stereotype of earlier Turkish father figures. Like the good Black father in New Black Cinema, who comes deceptively close to the ‘archetypal White Hollywood father’ (Bruzzi 2005: 166), Cumhur represents the new Turkish man, being in effect an idealised cultural hybrid in which the German middle-class values of education, tolerance and material success are fused with Turkish family values.

Figure 1: The idealised Turkish father Cumhur (Adnan Maral) and Johanna (Julia Mahnecke) (photo courtesy of Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln)

The pivotal moment in Johanna’s hybrid identity formation is the moment when Cumhur lovingly accepts her as his daughter, taking her in his arms and under his wing – and this despite the fact that she has just tried to empty his safe. Johanna happily embraces her new Turkish German identity: for the tenth anniversary party of Cumhur’s restaurant, themed One Thousand and One Nights, she designs contemporary Oriental

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costumes for Cumhur’s daughters, learns a few words of Turkish and, at the end of the film, embarks on a romance with Zervan, the young Turkish chef at the restaurant, before setting off on her journey to the Paris fashion school. Even though the film’s final shot shows Johanna on the train, there is a suggestion that the romance that did not survive between Cumhur and Johanna’s mother will blossom in their daughter’s generation, implying that Turkish and German cultures have grown together. Ayse Polat’s road movie cum coming-of-age film Tour Abroad, which has been compared to Central Station (Walter Salles, Brazil, 1998) and Kolya (Jan Sverak, Czech Republic, 1997) and Alice in the Cities (Wim Wenders, 1974), is another film about a ‘found father’. It sketches the development of an elective affinity between an eleven-year-old girl and a Turkish would-be drag queen. Zeki, a 42-year-old Turkish homosexual performer and singer who has been touring Europe for the past fifteen years, suddenly finds himself lumbered with Senay, the daughter of an ex-colleague of his, who died in an accident. Zeki tries to track down Senay's mother, a Turkish belly dancer, who abandoned her husband and baby daughter and whom Senay presumes dead. The quest for Senay's mother takes Zeki and Senay on an odyssey across a number of European cities, including Wuppertal, the most memorable location of Wenders’s Alice in the Cities, to Istanbul. But the encounter with Senay's mother does not culminate in a happy reunion. When laying eyes upon her daughter, she immediately runs away, unwilling to assume responsibility for her child. Senay, whom her father had deceived by telling her that her mother was dead, feels betrayed by him. Kneeling in front of a collection of colourfully illuminated cacti, presumably a present from her deceased father, she reproaches him for first having lied to her and then having deserted her through his death. If indeed a formative experience that triggers the transition from childhood to adulthood can be considered as the common narrative strategy of coming-of-age films, it is Senay’s sobering realisation that her biological parents were disloyal and deceitful. One last time she tenderly touches her treasured cacti collection and speaks to it as if it were her father, bidding farewell to it/him (and hands it over to a little orphaned girl in the hotel). Then she is ready to put the past – and her parents – behind her and embrace a new life together with Zeki, who has developed from a reluctant guardian into an affectionate foster father. The film's final scene shows Zeki and Senay getting into a taxi, driving off to the airport and back to Germany. One can only assume that Zeki, this camp bohemian, gay man, in all respects the very opposite of the Turkish patriarch, will stay with Senay for good.

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Ayse Polat’s film depicts a journey back to what are supposedly the cultural roots of the protagonists. Yet the film makes the point that both Senay and Zeki have become deracinated. Often in colonial discourse the country of origin is linked to the mother. As Stuart Hall notes, narratives ‘of displacement’ typically recreate ‘the endless desire to return to “lost origins”, to be one again with the mother, to go back to the beginning’ (Hall 2003: 245). It is not coincidental that both Senay and Zeki are rejected by their Turkish mothers. When Zeki pays a brief visit to his old mother in her summer bungalow on an island near Istanbul, she is cold and distant and only interested to find out whether he is married at all. She is obviously unaware of or unwilling to accept his homosexuality. Polat uses the maternal rejection of the protagonists as a trope of deracination. However, deracination is not tantamount to loss. On the contrary, it provides the liberating opportunity for Zeki and Senay to forge voluntary attachments which can prove stronger and more nurturing than biological parenthood. The effeminate Zeki is certainly a better mother, or father, or both than Senay’s biological parents. In fact, the film makes the point that it is precisely his ambiguous sexual orientation which equips him to stand in simultaneously for Senay’s unloving mother and her deceased father. As Bariú Kiliçbay suggests in his reading of Tour Abroad, Zeki, though not performing as a drag queen himself, is through various intertextual references associated with well-known Turkish drag artists. He shares his name with Zeki Müren, ‘a pioneer in queer art music’ and ‘legendary for both the quality of the songs he interpreted and the flamboyant appearance he cultivated’ (Kiliçbay 2006: 110). Unlike other drag artists, he chose to ‘expose a gender ambiguity by wearing women’s clothes without passing himself off as a woman’ (Kiliçbay 2006: 110). An even more important role model for Zeki in the film is the Turkish celebrity Bülent Ersoy, to whose famous popular songs he listens on his journey with Senay and whose photo he carries in his wallet. Ersoy, a male to female transsexual, ‘started her career as a drag performer in the same fashion as Zeki Müren’, but through a sex change in 1981 abandoned her life as a drag queen in favour of becoming a ‘whole woman’ (Kiliçbay 2006: 110-111). However, by retaining her male first name, Bülent continues to draw attention to her gender ambiguity. In Tour Abroad, Bülent Ersoy’s music embodies Zeki’s desire to be a woman, a desire that is touchingly expressed in his response to Senay’s fear and bewilderment when she has her first period. Zeki encourages her to embrace her womanhood enthusiastically and to celebrate it! Their greatest experience of closeness is when they both dress up in women’s clothes in a hotel room, performing Ersoy’s song about unrequieted love ‘Yakti Beni’

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together, a scene that culminates in Senay tenderly dropping rose petals on Zeki’s prostrate body. Moreover, his various male friends whom he visits en route refer to him as ‘my girl’, ‘sister’ or by other feminine designations. In short, it is impossible to conceive of a Turkish man further removed from the traditional stereotype of the oppressive Turkish patriarch than Zeki, a tender, sensitive and affectionate foster father, who would rather be a mother instead.

Figure 2. Zeki (Hilmi Sözer) and Senay (Öslem Blume) performing Ersoy’s song (photo courtesy of Neue Mira Filmproduktion GmbH)

Both Karamuk and Tour Abroad are films about teenage girls who are initially without fathers but who are able to transform this absence or loss into something positive. Both girls are free to choose good Turkish fathers, who are able to support their daughters’ maturation. The films disavow monochrome images of Turkish patriarchy by depicting fathers with fluid (Turkish-German; male-female) identities. Focusing on nurturing fatherdaughter relationships outside the context of the traditional family, these coming-of-age narratives call into question essentialist notions of identity based on bloodline and ethnicity, promoting voluntary affiliations and the formation of hybrid identities instead.

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Fathers who can’t win: the emasculated German vs. the authoritarian Turkish father Even before Rage was televised in September 2006, it caused a major uproar in the German media after a controversial preview the film in Der Spiegel, ten days before its envisaged premiere on 27 September. The article, entitled ‘Turkish Devil’, criticised Aladag’s film for being an ‘orgy of humiliation and violence’, for portraying a young Turkish migrant as a perpetrator and, thereby, being social dynamite and non-pc, and for inviting the audience to take voyeuristic pleasure in the masochism, humiliation and destruction of a German, middle-class family that represents the values of Western liberal democracy (Festenberg 2006). This brief article resulted in controversies at the highest level, involving politicians and managers of the television channel ARD, which had intended Rage as a contribution to the ongoing public debate about the integration of migrants into German society. The film, originally scheduled for a prime-time slot was postponed by two days and moved to a late night slot, yet the official reason given for the rescheduling was not its alleged racism but that it was unsuitable for adolescent viewers on account of its extreme violence. Set in Berlin, the film tells the story of Can, the adolescent son of a Turkish greengrocer and the Laub family, consisting of middle-aged university professor Simon Laub, his attractive estate agent wife Christa and teenage son Felix. Felix is an over-protected ‘mummy’s boy’ and a loner without siblings or friends. He gets bullied by Can, from whom he buys ‘dope’, but at the same time, he is drawn to him because the gang leader Can with his macho behaviour, confidence and ‘street cred’ represents the kind of hyper-masculinity that Felix finds lacking in his father and in himself. When Simon Laub discovers that Can is bullying his defenceless son, he gets embroiled in the conflict and becomes the chief target of Can’s hatred and aggression, while Felix is confused as to which side to take. In a final show down, reminiscent of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (Austria 1997; US remake 2007), Can holds the Laub family hostage in their own living room and forces them to play a sadistic ‘family game’: Simon Laub is given a gun and can choose whom to kill – himself or his wife – in order to save Felix’s life, whom Can holds prisoner with a sharp blade at his throat. In utter despair, Simon pulls the trigger – and finds that the gun is not loaded. Following further verbal abuse, Can lets go of Felix and walks out – the game is over. In a state of shock and rage, Simon Laub attacks Can and drowns him in the swimming pool. Upon realising that he has actually killed Can, he breaks down and

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cries inconsolably. Not only has he taken the life of someone, he has also betrayed the values on which his whole existence was founded. What makes this film pivotal in the context of this article is that Rage critically reassesses Turkish and German fathers – and ultimately finds fault with both, even though neither Felix’s nor Can’s father are depicted without empathy. Simon Laub is a soft-spoken, highly educated and gentle man, who espouses humanist values and believes in the power of language and rational reasoning, not in physical violence as a means of conflict resolution. 9 Despite his many virtues, he is depicted as an inadequate role model for his son, because ultimately he does not live by what he preaches. Felix senses his father’s ambivalence and is not alone in interpreting it as a weakness. Can provocatively asks on his first visit to the Laub family, when Felix’s mother, rather than his father, kicks him out: ‘Hey, Felix, who is boss here? Mummy or Daddy?’ Can’s instinctive assessment of the reversal of traditional gender roles in the Laub family is correct. It is Christa who brought the capital to buy the luxurious family home and it is Christa, who has the courage to search for a trespasser in the garden at night. She is in control and treats her husband in a patronising way, because he does not live up to her expectations of a ‘real man’. Simon’s best friend, Michael, a conventionally masculine man, who earns his living as a car mechanic, owns a gun and is ‘man enough’ to give Can a good beating (something Simon is incapable of doing), is the kind of tough guy whom Christa respects and desires – and with whom she has a clandestine affair. Felix’s troubled search for his identity and belonging is attributed to the dysfunctional family situation in which both parents have extramarital affairs and in which the father is perceived as weak and emasculated. He can, therefore, not facilitate his son’s maturation, which, according to Freud, depends on the father delivering the child from his bond with the mother. In an abusive tirade, Can sums up Simon Laub’s precarious status within his family by applying the values of Turkish Muslim patriarchy: ‘You have no honour, man. You don’t deserve any respect. Your family needs a man, not a queen like you. You son-of-a-bitch’, reiterating in cruder terms what Simon’s wife had said earlier on: ‘[Felix] needs you now. As a man. As a father’, implying that he does not fill either role. 9

In an interview Züli Aladag remarked: ‘Simon Laub espouses the right values […] the values he stands for are virtuous and represent those of the majority of Germans’ (Aladag and Gassner 2007). When in the film, Felix asks his father: ‘Why did you let the Turks into our country?’, Simon Laub explains that the deracination and marginalisation of the Turkish immigrants is to blame for their aggressive behaviour. Laub says this even though he has just been humiliated by Can and his gang.

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Figure 3. The emasculated father Simon Laub (August Zirner) in his first confrontation with Can (Oktay Özdemir) (photo courtesy of Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln)

Simon Laub is the modern-day equivalent of Jimmy Stark’s apronwearing father in the Nicholas Ray’s classic coming-of-age film Rebel without a Cause (USA 1955). This film, too, attributes Jim’s psychological problems, his inability to find a place amongst his peers and to become ‘a proper man’, to inadequate fathering. As Stella Bruzzi rightly notes, Rebel without a Cause ‘is only ostensibly about Jim’s problematic rebelliousness […]; its underpinning subject is the son’s desire to have and to become a traditional, authoritative father’ (Bruzzi 2005: 53). The same holds true for Felix, who is baffled and confused by his father’s perceived lack of authority. Thus, to some extent Rage appears to endorse a traditional Turkish, rather than a Western concept of masculinity, a point of criticism raised in the controversial preview of the film in Der Spiegel: ‘Rage takes sides with Can, the film’s secretly idolised hero, and endorses a culture that revolves around the concept of honour, that holds women and homosexuals in contempt and that advocates a return to the law of the jungle’ (Festenberg 2006). While it is certainly true that the film remains equivocal about the various models of masculinity it presents, Can’s father does not fare all that well either. Like so many Turkish-German film fathers before him, he is a greengrocer and a devout Muslim. The fact that he remains nameless

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underscores the typecasting of this character. Although he speaks with a slight accent, his command of German is remarkably good. Like Simon Laub, he is a soft-spoken and polite man who appears to grant his son Can considerable autonomy. When Simon Laub visits Can’s father for the second time, seeking his support in disciplining Can, the Turkish father is unwilling to co-operate and replies that he has no control over what his son does in the street and that ‘the young people’ need to sort out their problems themselves. This is actually sensible advice since only due to Simon Laub’s involvement has the conflict between Can and Felix escalated into an aggressive clash of cultures. Yet this ostensibly laissezfaire attitude is at odds with the paternal authority the Turkish father imposes upon his son when punishing him for his wrongdoings: he beats him, even in front of Simon Laub, when it transpires that Can has bullied Felix into surrendering his expensive trainers. After the police has raided Can’s family home and found large quantities of drugs, the Turkish father evicts his son. The context of this scene is particularly pertinent since it links the father’s mercilessness to the principles of Islam, by which he abides: Can comes home badly bruised and watches his father kneeling on the floor, praying. After Can’s father has rolled up his prayer rug, Can tries to kiss his hands and thereby seek his father’s forgiveness. But the father rejects Can and laconically asks him to leave the keys behind when leaving the flat. In particular, the cold and unforgiving way in which Can’s father banishes his eldest son is shocking. Accompanied by a popular song by the Turkish arabesque singer and composer Ferdi Tayfur, Can takes one last look at old family photos displayed in a glass cabinet and then sits down and cries. This highly emotional scene evokes a real sense of pity for the screen villain Can and suggests that the strict upbringing he experienced has played a fair share in his becoming a criminal. Can’s father is certainly as inadequate a role model for his adolescent son, as Felix’ father. The crucial difference, however, is that Can adopts the values of traditional Turkish patriarchy with its emphasis on honour and respect. He bows to his father’s authority and accepts the harsh punishment he receives without questioning it. Even though Can is not a practising Muslim himself, he is depicted as the product of a traditional Turkish Muslim upbringing. Whereas his father has found a niche of quiet co-existence within German society, his socially disenfranchised son is struggling to find his place in society, and vents his frustration with hatred, rage and terror. The controversies surrounding this ‘non-pc’ film were due in part to the fact that Rage can be read as an allegorical narrative about the Muslim terrorist threat to Western liberal democracy. Felix’s parents espouse

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precisely those values on which German contemporary society is built: the leftist-liberal values of the ’68-generation combined with the capitalist ethos of materialistic achievement. The killing of Can in the climactic final scene is highly problematic since it could be interpreted as Western society’s legitimate act of self-defence against the Islamic aggressor. Thus, Rage represents an alarming intensification of the culture clash paradigm found in earlier Turkish-German films – or does it? Rage is in fact one of those still comparatively rare films in which the ‘voyeuristic ethnographic gaze’ (Burns 2007: 369) is directed at both Turkish and German fathers and the beliefs they stand for. The film does not just point the finger at the problems inherent in traditional Turkish patriarchy, it is equally critical of the shortcomings of the bourgeois Laub family, a microcosm of German hegemonic society (Aladag 2006). According to Züli Aladag, even a liberal, open-minded man like Simon Laub, who thinks that he does not have a problem with foreigners, [who] on the contrary, considers himself to be a champion of their rights […] is by no means immune to intolerance […] It is easy to be tolerant as long as one does not have anything to do with foreigners, but as soon as their problems become our own, that’s the end of tolerance. This is an issue particularly close to my heart. Which values do we really represent? On what common level can we actually communicate? And how can we avoid such conflicts? (Aladag and Gassner 2007)

By scrutinising the majority as well as the minority culture and by not being afraid of invoking ethnic stereotypes that fly in the face political correctness, Aladag risked antagonising the left-liberal Germans as well as the Turkish-German community. This was a risk he consciously took, hoping to spark a process of critical self-reflection on both sides and, ultimately, to improve the dialogue between Turkish and German culture and thus pave the way for normalisation (Aladag and Aust 2006).

Works cited Akin, F. (2004), ‘Das Zornige gehört auch zu mir: Fatih Akin über seinen preisgekrönten Film Gegen die Wand’, epd Film, 4. www.epd.de/1stgate_epd/thementexte2/19191_28985.htm. Accessed 13 July 2005. Aladag, Z. and M. Aust (2006), ‘Wie tolerant bist du?’ Kölner StadtAnzeiger, 26 December.

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http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/1157542205925.shtml. Accessed 13 August 2008. Aladag, Z. and S. Gassner (2007), ‘Ausführliches Interview mit dem Regisseur Züli Aladag’, Bonus Material, German DVD release of Wut. Berghahn, D. (2006), ‘No Place Like Home? Or, Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin’, New Cinemas, 4:3, pp. 141-157. —. (2010), ‘Coming-of-age in “the Hood”: The Diasporic Youth Film and Questions of Genre’, European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe (eds. D. Berghahn and C. Sternberg), London: Wallflower Press (forthcoming). Bruzzi, S. (2005), Bringing Up Daddy: Fatherhood and Masculinity in Post-War Hollywood, London: BFI. Burns, R. (2006), 'Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?', German Cinema Since Unification (ed. David Clarke), London and New York: Continuum, pp. 127-150 —. (2007), ‘The Politics of Cultural Representation: Turkish-German Encounters’, German Politics, 16:3, pp. 358-378. Butterwegge, C. (2007) ‘Benehmt euch. Ihr seid hier nicht zu Hause’ Die Zeit Online, 45, p. 57. http://www.zeit.de/2007/45/Migranten-inMedien. Accessed 13 August 2008. Dehn, M. (1999), ‘Die Türken vom Dienst’, Freitag, 13, 26 March. http://www.freitag.de/1999/13/99131401.htm. Accessed 10 August 2008. Farrokhzad, S. (2006), ‘Exotin, Unterdrückte und Fundamentalisn. Konstruktionen der “fremden Frau” in deutschen Medien’, Massenmedian, Migration und Integration (eds. C. Butterwege and G. Hentges), Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp. 53-83. Fenner, A. (2006) ‘Traversing the Screen Politics of Migration: Xavier Koller’s Journey of Hope’, Moving Pictures, Migrating Identities (ed. E. Rueschmann), Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, pp. 28-38 Festenberg, N. von (2006), ‘Türkischer Teufel’, Der Spiegel, 18 September, p. 122, http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/dokument/dokument.html?id=4890272 0&top=SPIEGEL. Accessed on 18 September 2008. Göktürk, D. (2000), ‘Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema’, Spaces in European Cinema (ed. M. Konstantarakos), Exeter: Intellect, pp. 64-76. —. (2002), ‘Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Trafic in Cinema’, The German Cinema Book (eds. T. Bergfelder, E. Carter and D. Göktürk), London: BFI, pp. 248-256. Günar, S. V. (2002), Karamuk. Press Release. Cologne: Colonia Media Film Productions.

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Hall, S. (2003), ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, Theorizig Diaspora (eds. J. E. Braziel and A. Mannur), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 232246. Hollinger, D. A. (2000) Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism, New York: Basic Books. Kelek, N. (2006), Die fremde Braut: Ein Bericht aus dem Inneren des türkischen Lebens in Deutschland, München: Goldmann Taschenbuch. Kiliçbay, B. (2006), ‘Impossible Crossings: Gender Melancholy in Lola + Bilidikid and Auslandstournee, New Cinemas, 4:2, pp. 105-115. Kühn, H. (1995), ‘“Mein Türke ist Gemüsehändler”: Zur Einverleibung des Fremden in deutschsprachigen Filmen’, Getürkte Bilder: Zur Inszenierung von Fremden im Film (eds. E. Karpf, D. Kiesel and K. Visarius), Marburg: Schüren Verlag, pp. 41-62. Lau, J. (2005), ‘Wie eine Deutsche’, Die Zeit Online, 24 February, http://www.zeit.de/2005/09/Hatin_S_9fr_9fc_9f_09. Accessed 18 September 2008. Mercer, K. (2003), ‘Diaspora Culture and the Dialogic Imagination: The Aesthetics of Black Independent Film in Britain’, Theorizig Diaspora (eds. J. E. Braziel and A. Mannur), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 247-260. Pratt-Ewing, K. (2006), ‘Between Cinema and Social Work: Diasporic Turkish Women and the (Dis)Pleasures of Hybridity’, Cultural Anthropology, 21:2, pp. 265-294 Seeßlen, G. (2000), ‘Kino der doppelten Kulturen/ Le Cinema du métissage/ The Cinema of inbetween: Erster Streifzug durch ein unbekanntes Kino-Terrain, epd Film, 12, http://www.filmportal.de/public/pics/IEPics/d1/03D8FBEE873A4C20 856ACAADA2376272_mat_seexxlen_neu.pdf. Accessed 29 January 2008. Suner, A. (2005), ‘Dark Passion’, Sight & Sound, March. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/203. Accessed 13 July 2005. Teraoka, A. A. (1989), ‘”Talking Turk”: On Narrative Strategies and Cultural Stereotypes”, New German Critique, 46, pp. 104-128. Weisner, K. (2005), ‘Ehrenmord – “honour crime”’ http://www.dekomnetz.de/e9/e68/art1_Maerz2005.html. Accessed 18 September 2008. Wiegman, R. (1998), ‘Race, Ethnicity, and Film’, The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (eds. J. Hill and P. Church Gibson), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 158-168.

WOMEN IN TURKISH-GERMAN CINEMA: TRACING THE DIRECTION OF CHANGE THROUGH WOMAN’S IMAGE DøöDEM SEZEN

The early stories of Turks in Germany are “minor practices in a major language” in the sense formulated by Deleuze and Guattari. (Deleuze and Guattari, 2001, p. 25) These first generation films were affected by the deterritorialization of language, driven by certain limitations like smallness, amateurness, imperfectness, but also involve creative narrative models on confinement and exclosure of Turkish women in the hostland. As new generations of filmmakers and their cultural productions in Germany grew, the characters of these independent films developed new tastes and new pleasures in these second generation stories, through both their traditional tastes and new tastes of hostland, and accordingly, a new shift occurred from margin to center. As a product of dual displacement and postmodern scattering, and also a second displacement from margin to center, the texts and codes of such “accented films” as Hamid Naficy (2001) called are largely represented as feminine and maternal. The women characters of these films are in a doubled-minority position against the major language, and also the claustrophobic and enclosed spaces created by the patriarchal cultural tradition. In the early stories, their modernization is only possible through a break with tradition. In the films of second generation, they create new spaces in the interstices of tradition to deal with it. The woman image becomes a sign of a culture. This metonymical relationship between migrant woman and tradition has made it relatively easy to determine the new directions through films of first and second generation filmmakers through tracing the woman image in their films.

Women’s Image: Universal or? While pursuing the representations of women in first and second generation of Turkish-German films, the issue of whether we should focus

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on a universal discourse of feminism, or a deterritorialized identity formation becomes significant. In Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf (1978), declared that national identity was redundant for woman and said: “As a woman I have no country, as a woman I want no country, as a woman my country is the whole world.” (p. 109) Rosi Braidotti (1994), on the other hand, suggests that even though being “a citizen of the world” may seem attractive at first, this idea, that all women had in common were a sense of their homelessness, countrylessness, without a common anchoring point is inadequate either as a description of the status of women, or as a vision of their possible role in the future. (p. 21) Agreeing with Alice Walker (1984), who criticizes this as a nonchalant detachment and relying on Adrienne Rich’s (1985) notion of the politics of location, Braidotti (1994) suggests that generalizations about women should be replaced by attention to and accountability for their differences.(p. 21) Next to the exile, in today’s multicultural Europe, Braidotti (1994) describes migrant women as the loyal keepers of original home culture, and points out that the problems and challenges existing between the “white” intellectual women and these domestic foreigners of the society are not common at all and the links between them are not that effective. (p. 22) In addition to the configurations of both the migrant and exile, Braidotti (1994) also emphasizes the image of nomad who does not stand for homelessness, or compulsive displacement. (p. 22) According to Braidotti (1994), being a nomad, living in transition, does not mean that one is unable or unwilling to create those necessarily stable and reassuring bases for identity that allow one to function in a community; rather, nomadic consciousness consists in not taking any kind of identity as permanent. The nomadic subject is the one that is only passing through, the one who makes those necessarily situated connections that enable survival, without ever taking on fully the limits of one national, fixed identity. The nomad has no passport - or has too many of them. (p. 33) Braidotti (1994) uses this formulation to question the European feminist discourse about how sensitive the “white” intellectual women are to the migrant women in their own backyard, and she invites them to work through this paradox of proximity, indifference and cultural differences between the nomadic intellectual and the migrant women. (p. 255) On the other hand, this duality has the potential to develop in another way when the new generation children of migrants, with their own transitive, unstable, rhizomatic identities, grown up to be nomadic subjects themselves. While Braidotti draws on binary discourses of the image of women in a multicultural society, Meyda Ye÷eno÷lu (2004) positions women as a site

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on which tradition was debated and reformulated. The image of women is constructed as representing the inner, sacred, spiritual, and inviolable locus of the true, authentic identity of the culture. And it is precisely by being such a locus that she embodies the tradition and represents the culture’s innermost essence. Ye÷eno÷lu (2004) claims that if a fundamental rupture from this traditional identity is to be achieved, then the ideals of progress and modernization have to be meticulously inscribed onto her: she has to be remade. (p. 133) In other words, she suggests that the change in culture and traditions can be traced through pursuing the change of women’s representation. Following this idea in regard to films, and stressing the point that everyone is stereotyped in films at some stage, Linda Seger (1996) explains that ethnic women’s choices on what kind of character they want to play are almost nil. Although minorities have traditionally been stereotyped, women minorities suffer from a double-stereotype- the cultural stereotype and gender stereotype. Sometime there’s also a class stereotype, the ethnic woman is often portrayed as lower class and poor. (p. 175) The desired change in this situation, she suggests, must be that those characters they played need to be both universal and culturally specific. They need to express the full range of humanity and at the same time illustrate that ethnic background does add important details that have the potential to create fascinating original characters. (p. 177) Although classificatory approaches may have undesirable consequences for filmmakers due to overdetermining a film’s potential meanings, forcing it into one of the established categories which might constitute it as being bracketed, hyphenated, or misread altogether, how films are framed discursively has a lot to do with how they are received and conceived. Hamid Naficy’s (2001) formulation of “accented cinema” seems to bring up another perspective to the issue. In accented films, the outside, public spaces of the homeland’s nature and landscapes are largely represented as feminine and maternal. The inside, enclosed spaces, particularly those in the domestic sphere, are also predominantly coded as feminine. In this sense, all accented films, Naficy (2001) suggests, regardless of the gender of their directors or protagonists, are feminine texts. (p. 154) Naficy’s (2001) components of accented style, such as visuality, narrative structure, character and character development, subject matter, theme, plot, structures of feeling of identity, filmmaker’s biographical and sociocultural location, the film’s mode of production, distribution and reception (p. 21) can all be used to theorize Turkish-German cinematic productions, which share some common characteristics and also encode

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tensions and differences between the filmmakers. (Iúko÷lu, 2005) The variations among the films are driven by many factors, but similarities come from what the filmmakers have in common, such as identity formations and an interstitial position in society, and the filmic discourse. Their accentedness stems from the combination and intersection of those differences and similarities.

Embodiment of Frustration: Migrant Women Immigration of Turkish workers to Germany started in early 1960s. Early waves of migration consisted of young and healthy workers, who were expected to return to their homelands when their contracts ended. After a while it became clear that they would stay in Germany longer than initially expected. The workers started to bring their wives and children to their new homes. Consequently, Turks in Germany started to become not only a part of the economic structure, but also a part of the social landscape. The cultural clashes and migratory stories experienced by both Turkish migrants and Germans were ignored by mainstream media for a long time. However, beginning in 1970s, probably as a result of the prolonged stay and after the unification of workers with their spouses, both Turkish and German filmmakers started to pay attention to the conflictive experiences of migrants in Germany. In 1970s, German Cinema discovered Gastarbeiter (guest workers) stories. In 1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder made Angst Essen Seele Auf (Fear Eats the Soul) the story of a romance between a young North African immigrant and an elderly German widow. Inspired by his personal observations on real stories of people and newspaper coverage, in Angst Essen Seele Auf, Fassbinder focused on the conditions surrounding guest workers, and general social mechanisms. According to Michael Töteberg (1995), however, the key point for Fassbinder was xenophobia and prejudices of the host society, rather than the subjects of migration themselves. (p. 12) Based on the essence of unification of spouses, one of the earliest examples of the depiction of Turkish-German migratory experiences on movie screen focused on the frustration of a young woman searching for her husband in German streets. In 1975, Helma-Sanders Brahms made ùirin’s Hochzeit (ùirin’s Wedding) telling the story of ùirin who is a poor young Turkish woman leaving her village in rural Anatolia and searches for her fiancé Mahmut in the streets of Cologne. The film displays her arrival to Germany alongside with the guest workers, picturing long, dark corridors with amplifiers and completing the image of the hostland with

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the scenes of alienation, prostitution, crowded guest houses, called Heim, and dark and misty neighborhoods. Brauerhoch (1995) emphasizes the film’s stylistic characteristics as similar to cinema verité and notes ùirin’s Hochzeit as one of the early examples which designates foreign Turkish women as victims. (p.109) Another unification story in 1986, Turkish-born Tevfik Baúer released his first feature film 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland (40 Square Meters of Germany) which attracted a great deal of attention to migrant stories. The film tells the story of Turna, forced to live in Germany by her husband and literally locked into to a 40 square meters apartment in Hamburg. Spending her days in the service of her patriarchal husband, housecleaning and cooking, Turna has no contact with the world outside the apartment except a limited view which only gives her a glimpse of life going on outside. The single opportunity for Turna to get a picture of the hostland is her husband’s promise to take her to the city fair to show her how immoral Germans actually are. On the day of the occasion, Turna dresses in her traditional clothes and colored scarves, but her enthusiasm and exposed femininity only makes the husband angrier and more abusive; he breaks the promise and goes out alone. The only time she is recognized by her husband is when he becomes frustrated by her inability to produce him a son. When she gets ill due to distressful conditions, instead of a doctor, her husband comes home with a hodja who prays and writes holy texts from Koran on her stomach. Turna’s escape from the apartment becomes possible finally when the husband has a fatal epileptic attack and collapses in front of the door. Turna runs out to the sunlight of the street which, far from being a true emancipation, leads to a whole set of new problems. Released from the patriarchal authority, she is encompassed by a totally alien world. Baúer’s second film in 1988, Abschied vom Falschen Paradise (Farewell to False Paradise) tells another woman’s story. In the film, insulted and abused by her oppressive husband, Elif sees no other solution than to kill him, and is sent into a German prison. With her limited German, she tries to find her way out of this material and psychological confinement and struggles to create a small inhabitance in the prison where she shares with her new friends, and even falls in love with another prisoner in the men’s site. But this peaceful and hopeful atmosphere is ephemeral. She learns that the foreign convicts are sent back to their homeland immediately after release. The paradise that she created in prison is destroyed, when, on her release, she finds her husband’s male relatives waiting for her. Ironically, the prison turned out to be a place of freedom for this Turkish woman.

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A reversed version of the story of the Turkish woman trapped in a forty square meter apartment in Hamburg can be seen in Sinan Çetin’s Berlin in Berlin in 1993. Çetin turns the original narrative into a German man’s captivity in a four square meters closet in a Turkish household in Berlin. (Reinecke, 1994) In the film, a young German engineer and amateur photographer Thomas, takes pictures of beautiful young Turkish wife, Dilber, without her permission. Dilber’s husband finds out, and assuming that she deliberately exposed herself to a stranger and taking this as an offence to his honor he starts a fight with Thomas and he gets killed by the photographer accidentally. Three months later, driven by guilt, Thomas seeks Dilber in Kreuzberg, Berlin’s Turkish district, to explain what happened. When he finally attempts to talk to her, he is spotted by Dilber’s relatives and while escaping, by an absurd coincidence he ends up hiding on top of the closet in Dilber’s room. As he is discovered in her room, the macho young brother in-law of her threatens his brother’s murderer to kill with a gun. In this traditional Turkish household, the grandmother prevents the young brother to kill Thomas, since he is a guest sent to them by God and Thomas is given asylum in the Turkish family. According to Deniz Göktürk (2001), this is a reversal situation of foreigners seeking asylum on German territory. During his long captivity in this flat he slowly becomes a part of the family life, interacts with family members and especially with Dilber; and voyeuristic ethnographic gaze of him gradually reverses. (Göktürk, 2011) At the end, Thomas and Dilber leave the flat walking hand in hand into an unknown future. Deniz Göktürk (2001) interprets this as a break out from imprisonment and speaking back to the center, opening up possibilities of traffic in both directions between Turkishness and Germanness. We can observe several common characteristic in these films. Alienated from the host society, migrant women are confined, isolated in claustrophobic spaces by patriarchal figures. Turna is imprisoned in her apartment by her husband; Elif tries to escape from her patriarchal relatives through imprisonment; and Thomas, a German middle class male, is imprisoned by tradition due to his affiliation to Dilber, who is also trying to cope with the life in a small apartment, feeling guilty and insecure about her femininity. Another common characteristic of these films is the sexual abuse of migrant women. Sexuality is used by men as a means of oppression. None of the characters described above selfconsciously desire or enjoy their sexuality. ùirin moves to prostitution; Turna is seen by her husband as a sexual servant, and Dilber becomes the target of sexual desires of her brother in law. While the traditions of the home country bind these women the new country offers them no welcome.

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Women experience everyday prejudice and racism, seen in ùirin’s fall to prostitution, Elif’s troubles in prison, or Dilber’s initially being an exotic object of desire for Thomas. Being in a double-stereotyped position, these characters first return to tradition albeit unwillingly. The headscarf represents dependence and insecurity they endure. The loss of headscarf is either a symbol of degeneration in the new country as in ùirin’s case, or results in being targeted by tradition, as in Elif’s case. Centered on gender relations, these narratives present the victimization of Turkish women through imprisonment, exclusion and alienation. (Göktürk, 2001)

Women in Transition In the late 1990s, a new generation of Turkish origined filmmakers and actors began to emerge. They were the children of the first generation guest workers and their own experience of being Turkish and living in Germany differed significantly from the previous generation. Thus the stories they told were also different from the first generation of filmmakers, who told their parents’ and grandparents’ stories. Horrocks and Kolinsky (1996) summarize the characteristics of this second generation as followed: “...not only did Turkish labor migrants differ in the educational background, vocational qualifications and regional traditions they brought from Turkey to Germany, the experiences of migration, settlement and adjustment themselves changed their socio-economic position and their cultural orientations. Moreover, members of the second and third generation did not experience the same history: many were born in Germany, many moved for visits or spells of residency between Germany and Turkey. All the Nachgeborenen, those born later, have their own personal history of dual identity and their own strategies for balancing Turkish traditions and German influences in their own life.” (p. xxi)

The migrant women, who played a key role in the previous generation’s stories, are also important figures in the films of these new filmmakers. Yet the woman’s image in Nachgeborenen directors differs from earlier films in several aspects. Although the subject of patriarchal pressures is still important, women in these second generation films seek alternatives or even have alternative lives. This transition in women can be seen as one of the major common characteristic of this new era of TurkishGerman filmmaking. It is depicted in several stages in different films. Female characters, oppressed by both tradition and the hostland, still try to escape with determination, even if it ends with failure. They are part of the workforce; they earn their own lives, and thus are able to reject patriarchy.

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There is also a new generation of sexually active women among them; who wants to be a part of the “immoral” society, which Turna not even could glimpse. There are well educated, independent middle class women who enjoy their hybrid identity, and last but not least, there are characters who have lost their connection to their migrant origins and are trying to recover it, to get back in contact with their tradition, which a generation ago was the cause of their imprisonment. An example of a female character in transition from tradition to independence can be found in Buket Alakuú’s Anam in 2001. The film tells the story of a new type of traditional woman named Anam. A mother of two and a devoted wife, Anam is also part of the working class and in touch with the society. She works as a cleaning lady in a big office building, has good relationships with her German colleagues. However, as soon as her shift is over, she returns to her home and her traditional values. Although she is portrayed in a way which characters from the previous period could only dream, she still experiences some minor clashes with her colleagues due to her devotion to tradition. Her transformation to a much more independent character starts with the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. As a working woman she breaks up with her husband and starts to raise her children alone. While her female relatives try to persuade her to “save her family” by reuniting with her husband, Anam finds support from her colleagues. The story takes another twist when her son gets in trouble with the drug mafia in Hamburg. In the director’s own words, “…in the film, the leading character Anam finds her own identity in the course of searching for her son.” (Alakuú, 2003) The film Anam deals with various themes, such as feministic motives and gender-related issues, motherhood, migrancy and friendship. Two symbolic events represent the changes in Anam. First, she learns to drive. Driving a car becomes a metaphor for taking control of her own life, and a platonic love interest toward her German driving instructor underlines her new independence as a single woman. Secondly, in her efforts to find her son, she, in an unintentional but conclusive way, loses her headscarf but is not affected by this. Headscarf is a continuing symbol from the first generation, but this time Anam puts away her headscarf and stands up as an independent character and does not become a victim of neither tradition nor degeneration as Elif and ùirin became. Hamburg-based filmmaker Fatih Akn features a series of different women figures in various stages of transition in his films; starting with his first film Kurz und Schmerzlos (Short, Sharp, Shock) in 1998. While Kurz und Schmerzlos focuses on three young male characters, Turkish Gabriel, Greek Costa and Serbian Bobby, living in Altona, one of the most well-

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known multi-cultural neighborhoods in Germany, it also depicts Ceyda, the sister of Gabriel. She represents a great advance from the victimized women of the migrant era. Self-conscious and independent, she is a part of the social life in Germany; speaks both Turkish and German fluently and has close German friends. She is the girlfriend of Costa and they can conduct their relationship openly in front her family. As a strong and feminine character, she does not allow herself to be pressured by patriarchy. Ceyda’s relation with his brother is mutually respectful and caring. Their father’s interference is not oppressive, but as an important figure of tradition, he is visible. A similar but softer female character, Melek, can be found in another Akn film Im Juli (In July). While her function is mainly the “call for adventure” in this romantic comedy, she is also a self-confident and independent young woman. She is a part of the German society, she flirts with the hero of the movie, and invites him to a fairy-tale like journey to her ancestral home town, østanbul. Another middle-class, “multi-kulti” portrayal can be found in Sinan Akkuú’s Evet, Ich will! (Evet, I Do!), a romantic comedy focused on a number of multigender, multi-national couples. The film uses stereotypes to create scenes of cultural crash. A German man wants to marry a Turkish woman, so his parents carry out superficial gestures to communicate with her fiancé’s family, such as his mother wearing a headscarf. Another clash is caused by the families of a Turkish woman and a Kurdish man in love, the left wing Turkish family rejects the traditional and conservative Kurdish family. In both cases, women are portrayed in a mediocre, self-conscious way but still under the influence of their families to an extent. Fatih Akn’s, one of the most celebrated films, Gegen die Wand (HeadOn) on the other hand gives a harsher view on the Turkish origined women in Germany. The film tells the story of a young Turkish woman, Sibel, marrying a depressive and nonchalant Turkish man, Cahit, and how they fall in love afterwards. She initially seeks social and sexual independence and plans to use marriage as a formal way to break out of the strict rules of her traditional, conservative family. Even though the boundaries of the tradition are strong in her life, what Sibel expects was also not a moderate way of living. Her need of independence is so strong that she eventually rejects her own love for Cahit, for not becoming a wife and being bound by the social and psychological boundaries of it. While not the main focus, the film also gives a glimpse of the patriarchal and sexual structures of the second generation migrant families. During a formal visit to Sibel’s family, men and women sit in separate rooms and talk about their sexual lives privately. While the women envy Sibel’s pretended colorful sexual life with her husband, Cahit listens to men

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talking about their sexual encounters with prostitutes and then criticizes them by suggesting “to fuck their own wives”, resulting in angry reactions from them for using the word “fuck” in the same sentence with their wives. Yet another perspective of sexual and economic struggle of Turkish origined women in Germany can be found in Akn’s 2007 film Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven). Yeter, using the “stage name” Jessy, is a prostitute. One day an elderly Turkish man, Ali, asking for her services discovers her true identity. The scene starts with Ali asking for “French style” sex and Yeter accepting it. While the two undress, Yeter plays a CD of Turkish music. Ali became confused when she confirmed she was Turkish, and he was both embarrassed and excited by this fact. After their transaction, he suggests she moves in to his home and become his mistress. While Yeter initially rejects this offer, threats from other Turkish men in her neighborhood who discover her identity forces her to accept. Yet, as Sibel feared in Gegen die Wand; this new power structure disturbs their relationship. Ali starts to act jealously and even suspects Yeter of having sexual intercourse with his son. After a while Yeter finds this life unbearable and decides to leave Ali but is accidently killed by him during an argument. Early motives of migrant era also reemerge in some of the second generation films. Feo Alada÷’s Die Fremde (When We Leave) portrays an honor killing in Berlin. In the film, German-born Umay flees her oppressive husband in Turkey with his son. Seeking help and shelter from her family in Germany, but is frustrated by their rejection. She is hosted by a German shelter house, finds a job, and falls in love, but her every effort to get in touch with her family results with failure. Even though she finds her way out into German society, she is unable to compromise with the tradition. Umay’s integration with the world outside and her struggle to pick up the pieces and ability to establish a life for her son is obscure to her family. Although her determination gets a blessing from her father at the end, she is unable to escape the fatal interference of her brother. While still part of the Turkish – German cinema, some directors have chosen to shift their focus from migratory experiences to feminine struggles. Female director Sülbiye Günar made her first feature Karamuk in 2002 in Germany as a German production, which tells the story of Johanna, a 17 year old teenage girl. Johanna’s only dream is to study fashion design in Paris. She tries to find a way to make this dream real and goes to her father, who was divorced from her mother when she was younger. But instead of the financial support she hoped for, she learns that this man is not her real father. She is in fact the daughter of a Turkish man

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who knows nothing about Johanna, and has his own family and owns a luxurious restaurant in Berlin. Thus, Johanna decides to learn more about her father by starting to work at his restaurant without revealing her true identity. As an entertaining coming-of-age story, Karamuk presents the Turkish family very elegantly compared to the previous generation. The film breaks the class stereotype and introduces a new, higher class, well educated, integrated Turkish – German family. Buket Alakuú’s second feature, Eine andere Liga (Offside) similarly tells the story of a footballloving teenage Turkish girl, Hayat, living in Hamburg. Raised by her caring father after the death of her mother; she still feels the lack of female guidance while growing up and learning about life. The situation becomes much more complicated when one of her breasts is removed after cancer. After the initial shock, she gets into her life again and begins to pick up the pieces. She falls in love with her football trainer Toni; but she feels insecure and finds herself in the “offside” positions as in the title; due to the loss of her breast and her self-confidence at the same time. Although it is a feminine story dealing with the love conflicts, friendship, parental loss and the trauma of breast cancer, as well as proving herself in maledominated territory of football, the ethnic theme is presented in a rather subtle way. Both heroines, Johanna and Hayat, share some commonalities, which bring them together in their relation to their cultural background and future expectations; which is quite different from the characters of the previous generation, and also distinguishes them from their contemporaries.

Conclusion In her 2001 article, Deniz Göktürk (2001) makes a comparison between Asian-British Cinema and Turkish-German Cinema using the concepts of Sarita Malik. Malik argues that in Black British films of 1990s, a shift has been taking place from the social realism of a “cinema of duty” towards “the pleasures of hybridity”. In relation to this, Göktürk hopes for a little more hybridity and pleasure in Turkish-German films, rather than victimization and closure. This hope of the early 2000 has been partially achieved after a decade. Although, the strict boundaries and close relations regarding women and tradition are retained, the changing representation of women’s existence in social life is significantly visible in these second generation films. The figure of a passive Turkish woman has been changed to a certain extent, or is still in an ongoing transformation. For the female characters, the hostland’s culture is no longer foreign. They are

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multilingual, they speak both Turkish and German; and express themselves without difficulty in the society. Economic freedom is the basic component in their transformation. Filmmakers have begun to tackle migration and cultural clashes with a sense of humour, mixing them with comedy. It emerges as an exploration of the potentials of cultural bricolage and hybridity. Women no longer wear headscarf, or getting rid of the headscarf is shown as a symbol of freedom from traditional ties, which is rather a westernized form of liberation. Narratives and images of women in Turkish-German stories can be a source of decoding the ongoing change of this culture due to metonymical capacity of women subjects with tradition. The introduction of the deterritorialized, rhizomatic, nomadic subjects of a novel feminist discourse, embodied in material cultural productions like films to Western epistemology opens up new paths not only in the medium of transnational films but also exposes a wider space for the discussion of gender politics.

References Braidotti, R. (1994). Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Brauerhoch, A. (1995). Die Heimat des Geschlechts-oder mit der fremden Geschichte die eigene erzaehlen: Zu Shirins Hochzeit von Helma Sanders Brahms. In Ernst Karpf & Doron Kiesel & Karsten Visarius (Eds.) Getürkte Bilder:Zur Inszenierung von Fremden im Film (p.109115). Marburg: Schüren Presseverlag. Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (2001). Kafka - Minör bir edebiyat için. Translated by Özgür Uçkan & Iúk Ergüden. østanbul, Yap Kredi Yaynlar. Iúkoglu, D. (2003). A conversation with director Buket Alakuú (10.08.2003). —. (2005) Kültürlerin kesiúimi, aksanl sinema ve Almanya'daki 2. ve 3. kuúak Türk yönetmenlerin sinemasal üretimi (Unpublished Master Thesis). Available from YÖK Dissertations & Thesis database. østanbul. Göktürk, D. (2001): Turkish delight – German fright: Migrant identities in transnational cinema. Retrieved November, 8, 2011 from http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/mediated.pdf Horrocks, D. & Kolinsky, E. (1996). Turkish Culture in German Society Today. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

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Naficy, H. (2001). An accented cinema: Exilic and diasporic filmmaking. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Reinecke, S. (20 May 1994) Vier Quadratmeter Türkei: Berlin in Berlin – ein Kinomelodram von Sinan Çetin. Frankfurt: Frankfurter Rundschau. Rich, A. (1985). Notes toward a politics of location. In Myriam DiazDiocaretz & Iris M. Zavala (Eds.) Women, feminist identity, and society in 1980s: Selected papers (p.7–22). USA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Seger, L. (1996). When women call the shots: The developing power and influence of women in television and film. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Töteberg, M. (1995) Alle Türken heissen Ali - Sozial kritik und melodrama zu Angst Essen Seele Auf von Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In Ernst Karpf & Doron Kiesel & Karsten Visarius (Eds.) Getürkte Bilder: Zur Inszenierung von. Fremden im Film (p.99-108). Marburg: Schüren Presseverlag. Walker, A. (1984). In search of our mothers’ gardens. London: The Women’s Press. Woolf, V. (1978). Three guineas. London: Penguin. Ye÷eno÷lu, M. (2004). Sömürgeci fantaziler. Ankara: ømge Kitabevi.

Films Mentioned Akkuú, Sinan: Evet, Ich will!, 2008 Akn, Fatih: Kurz und Schmerzlos, 1998 Akn, Fatih: Im Juli, 2000 Akn, Fatih: Gegen die Wand, 2004 Akn, Fatih: Auf der anderen Seite, 2007 Alada÷, Feo: Die Fremde, 2010 Alakuú, Buket: Anam, 2001 Alakuú, Buket: Eine andere Liga, 2005 Baúer, Tevfik: 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland, 1986 Baúer, Tevfik: Abschied vom Falschen Paradise, 1988 Çetin, Sinan: Berlin in Berlin, 1993 Fassbinder, Rainer Werner: Angst Essen Seele Auf, 1973 Günar, Sülbiye: Karamuk, 2002 Sanders Brahms, Helma: ùirin’s Hochzeit, 1975

CONTRIBUTORS

Daniela Berghahn is Professor of Film Studies in the Media Arts Department at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has extensively published on German and transnational European cinema. Her publications include Unity and Diversity in the New Europe (co-edited, 2000), Hollywood Behind the Wall: The Cinema of East Germany (2005), Turkish-German Dialogues on Screen (special issue New Cinemas, 2009) and European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe (co-edited, 2010). Rob Burns is Professor of German Studies and Head of the German Department at the University of Warwick, where he has taught since his appointment there in 1974. His research interests include working-class culture in Germany, the political culture of the Federal Republic, cultural policy in the FRG and, most recently, diasporic culture in the FRG. His publications include Arbeiterkulturbewegung in der Weimarer Republik, Protest and Democracy in West Germany (both of these with Wilfried van der Will) and, as editor, German Cultural Studies: An Introduction. He currently teaches courses on culture and politics in the Third Reich and on German cinema since 1945. Senem Duruel Erklç completed her BA in Film and TV at Mimar Sinan University. She got her MFA from Chapman University (USA) in Film and TV Production. After receiving her PhD from Mimar Sinan University in 2002, Duruel Erklç started teaching at Mersin University. Her research interests include Turkish cinema, cinema-history relationship, short filmmaking and documentary. She has articles on these issues in various academic journals and books. She also made several short films and documentaries. Duruel Erklç is currently teaching courses on Turkish cinema, film and history, and film language in both undergraduate and graduate levels in the Faculty of Communication at Mersin University. Hakan Erklç completed his PhD in Film and TV at Mimar Sinan University. He has been teaching at Mersin University, Faculty of Communication since 2004. His research interests include Turkish cinema, cinema and ideology, mode of film production, scriptwriting, documentary,

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digital cinema and new media. He has articles on these issues in various academic journals and books. He teaches courses on cinema and ideology at the graduate level, and scriptwriting, digital cinema and new media at the undergraduate level. Erklç is currently the head of Radio, Film and TV Department at Mersin University. Jessica Gallagher is a Research Affiliate in the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies at The University of Queensland, where she also received her PhD. Her research focuses on the representation of the Turkish diaspora in contemporary Turkish-German cinema with an emphasis on space, identity and intercultural relationships. Gökçen Karanfil is a scholar of communication. His research interests range across nationalism, transnationalism, issues of representation and the sociology of media. He has published on these issues in a variety of academic journals. After receiving his PhD from the Australian National University in 2007 Gökçen Karanfil started teaching at øzmir University of Economics (IUE). He currently teaches courses on communication theories and sociology of media in both undergraduate and graduate levels. Gökçen Karanfil is currently the head of Media and Communication Department at IUE. Christina Kraenzle (PhD, University of Toronto, 2004) is Associate Professor and Director of the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada. Her research focuses on modern German literature, film and culture, with an emphasis on transnational cultural production, migration, travel, and globalization. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume Mapping Channels Between Ganges and Rhein: German-Indian Cross-Cultural Relations (with Jörg Esleben and Sukanya Kulkarni, CSP, 2008) as well as articles in The German Quarterly, German Life and Letters, Transit: A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-Speaking World, and the volume Searching for Sebald: Photography after W. G. Sebald. Philippe Meers is Associate Professor in film and media studies at the University of Antwerp, where he is head of the Department and deputy director of the Visual Studies and Media Culture research group. He has published on film culture in Illuminace, The Journal of Popular Film and Television, Screen and in Hollywood Abroad (BFI, 2004); The Contemporary Hollywood Reader (Routledge, 2009). With Richard Maltby and Daniel Biltereyst, he edited Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches

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and Case Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) and Audiences, Cinema and Modernity: New Perspectives on European Cinema History (Routledge, 2012). He is co-editor of a book series Film & TV Studies with Academia Press (with Daniël Biltereyst). He is chair of the Film Studies section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), founding member of European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) and the Network on History of Movie-going, Exhibition, and Reception Project (HoMER). Serhan Mersin was a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Communication, Ankara University. Despite still being at the very early stages of his academic career he had published several articles in academic journals. In addition to his conference papers Serhan Mersin also wrote for intellectual periodicals and the Internet. He passed away in 2012 -a few months before the completion of this volume- at a very young age, leaving behind a lot of unfinished work and ideas. Di÷dem Sezen holds a PhD in Communications from Istanbul University and works at the same institution as a postdoctoral researcher. She visited Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Literature, Communication and Culture as a Fulbright scholar. Her research interests include new media literacies, convergence culture and transnational cinema. She also works for the Turkish Chapter of Digital Games Research Association. Kevin Smets holds an MAs in Contemporary History and Cultural Management and studied in Brussels, Prague, Leuven and Antwerp. He currently finishes his doctoral dissertation within the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on diasporic film cultures among Turkish and Moroccan communities. His main research interests are media reception, migration history, contemporary fiction and ethnicity. His work has been published internationally in journals such as Communications, Javnost, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Participations. Serkan ùavk teaches at øzmir University of Economics (IUE) Faculty of Communication and he is a PhD candidate at Hacettepe University. His research interests involve a variety of subjects that intersect under the broader frame of history of communication. In addition to his research and conventional teaching practices he also makes short documentaries and takes part as an instructor in international documentary workshops and media projects.

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Ayça Tunç Cox completed her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London with a dissertation entitled “Diasporic Cinema: Turkish-German Filmmakers with Particular Emphasis on Generational Differences”. She received her MA from Ege University, øzmir-Turkey with a thesis on “Independent Cinema: Alternative Tendencies in Turkish Cinema in the 1990s”. She worked as a Visiting Teaching Staff at Royal Holloway, Media Arts Department between 2008 and 2010, and as a Research Assistant at Ege University, Faculty of Communication between 2002 and 2012. She now works as an Assisstant Professor at Izmir Institute of Technology, Industrial Design Department. Among her research interests are transnational cinema, diasporic cinema, national cinemas, European cinema, independent and alternative cinema, and new Turkish cinema. She has published several articles in various academic journals as well as four book chapters on cinema, and has made several short films. Nejat Ulusay is Professor of cinema at Faculty of Communication, Ankara University. His research interests range across fields such as contemporary world cinemas, Turkish cinema and film genres. He has published extensively on these issues in academic journals, intellectual periodicals and is the author of numerous chapters in books. Ulusay is also the author of Melez ømgeler: Sinema ve Ulusötesi Oluúumlar (Hybrid Images: Cinema and Transnational Occurrences) – one of the few books in Turkish on Turkish transnational cinema. Sofie Van Bauwel is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Ghent University, where she teaches on audiovisual communication, gender and media and television studies. She is part of the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies (CIMS) and her main field of interest is gender, media and film and television. She is involved in several projects with a focus on media as signifying articulations in visual popular culture. She is the vice-chair of the Gender and Communication section of the European Research and Communication Association (ECREA) and is part of the editorial board of Journal of Media Theory and Politics and Culture. She is also co-editor of the working papers Film and Television Studies and publishes internationally on popular media culture, feminist theory and film. Roel Vande Winkel is Associate Professor at the University of Antwerp (Research Group Visual Culture) and at the University College for Sciences and Arts (Sint Lukas Brussels). He is an affiliated researcher at the KU Leuven and Associate Editor of the Historical Journal of Film,

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Radio and Television. His work was published in international academic journals such as Javnost, Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Filmblatt, Historical Reflections, Journal of Film Preservation, Film International and Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis. He edited the volumes Cinema and the Swastika (with David Welch), Perspectives on European Film and History (with Leen Engelen) and published several articles and books in Dutch. He is currently finalizing his book study Nazi Newsreel Propaganda in the Second World War (forthcoming from Academia Press, 2013) and preparing, with Daniel Biltereyst, an edited collection on censorship (Silencing Cinema. Film Censorship around the World, forthcoming from Palgrave, 2013). A long term project is a monograph on Belgian cinema under the Nazi occupation. Özgür Yaren is a film scholar at Ankara University, Faculty of Communication. He currently teaches courses in both undergraduate and graduate levels on audio-visual media and photography. He has translated texts into Turkish, including Seymour Chatman’s Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. He also published articles on film, including a book on European migrant cinema; Altyazl Rüyalar (2008). Pnar Yldz is a Research Assistant and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Communication, Ankara University. Her research interests involve memory and cinema, Turkish cinema, representation and cinema and art cinema. In addition to her academic research she makes documentary and fiction film. In 2002 she has worked as a production assistant in the short film Sanc, in 2004 she has produced and directed the documentary film Sürgün, and in 2012 she has worked as an Assistant Director in the feature film Babamn Sesi.